Like veins and capillaries black
against the evening sky,
Naked winter branches suck
the last hour dry.

Barbara Loots

It was in the Dark Ages of my life–that awkward time between the end of childhood and the beginning of maturity. It was also, probably, the dark time between my latest “crush” and the acceptance (again) of the crushing disappointment that often follows infatuation. At the time, my mother observed (I am told, for I don’t remember her ever saying this directly to me), “Oh, you know Barbara. She’s in love with love.”

I believe that my mother hoped I would avoid making a very big mistake in a matter of romance. However, she was wise enough not to make a big deal of my perpetual heartbreak. The independence of her children, mistakes and all, was her primary goal.

While my eventual choice of a husband had its heartbreaking aspects for my mother–and for me, too–the marriage lasted 38 years until his death. So, as a best-selling greeting card I once wrote for Wedding Anniversary observed in wry fashion: “It was the best mistake I ever made.”

But back to that “in love with love” thing. My mother was right.

My gaping hunger to love and be loved, in all of its capacities–from sexuality to spirituality, affection to compassion, friendly acquaintance to lifelong partnership–needed to be fed. Perhaps my particular neediness hung out a bit more than the average person’s. I was a kid prone to cry over spilt milk. So, as soon as I learned how the alphabet worked, I became a writer. My emotions were always conspicuous.

Filling that wide-open heart with love has been a lifelong endeavor. Meanwhile, I can only hope that the spillover has had some benefit for others, too.
 

 
WHEN I SIT LISTENING
 
 
When I sit listening to the earth,
its clashing water, whispering tree,
I learn beyond a doubt that earth
is also listening to me.
 
In intersections never planned
among the living and the dead,
in serendipity of things
already thought, already said,
 
in conversations with the past,
in time however brief or long,
I join creation incomplete
without my life, my death, my song.
 
I replicate in syllables
the story of all grief, all fear,
because the world is leaning in
with love, with love, with love, to hear.

 
 
Barbara Loots

It’s the day between the two performances of The Journey to Bethlehem at Second Presbyterian Church. This walk-through theatrical presentation of the Christmas story has occurred annually for 39 years–with only one year off when the parking lot was being resurfaced. Upwards of 100 church people of all ages are involved in the planning, performance, and hospitality connected with this event. Rounding up that many volunteers is only one of the miracles that occurs each and every year.

For instance, somehow the role of a no-show actor–whether it’s one of the Three Wise Men or an Innkeeper or perhaps one of the Rabbis–gets filled on the spot by a replacement willing to “do the lines” on a moment’s notice. There’s always a costume that fits well enough. And the story goes on….

Over the years, the costume collection has grown to fill an entire room. The scenery? Well, that has spilled over into at least one remote storage unit. Actors may be recruited from the second or third generation of actors since the original production. Visitors who first saw the Journey as children are bringing their grandchildren. In fact, it’s a miracle that the tradition has survived–survived reluctant pastors, members complaining about the mess or the expense, and the general question of whether or not “we always do it!” is a good reason for doing it again. We are, after all, Presbyterians. Always asking questions, parsing the cost/benefit, reforming ourselves.

Every year, I anticipate The Journey with a mixture of joy and dread. Truth be told, as one of the original perpetrators, I’ve now backed away from much of the responsibility. So my stress level with the approach of Christmas is considerably reduced. I sign up for a part, and don my costume for the two nights, guiding groups of “travelers” along the road to Bethlehem. We visit Herod’s palace, we gasp at the appearance of the Angel, we gather around the campfire of the shepherds. We annoy the Innkeeper who has NO ROOM. And finally, we arrive with wonder at the stable, where Mary and Joseph watch over the long-expected Jesus.

And that’s the REAL Christmas. Let’s do it again next year!

This morning I read about a new smartphone app. It enables the smartphone user to scan a barcode and immediately purchase an item in a store or online.

I perfectly understand that a smartphone is only as smart as its dumb user, so I don’t usually “get” (as in understand) or “get” (as in purchase) so-called apps that aim to make my life happen faster. Especially in the area of buying stuff. Delayed gratification. That was a life skill, right along with independence, carefully cultivated in me by my parents.

Ages ago, with my first adult, full-time employment paycheck in the bank, I felt immediately the intoxicating persuasion of purchasing power. It was, to be specific, the intoxicating fragrance known as “new car smell.” Sitting in the driver’s seat of a sporty car in a dealer showroom, I could easily calculate the joy of trading in my college clunker for something more exciting. Luckily, at the time, there wasn’t an app for instant gratification.

That night, I called my dad, not a paragon of restraint when it came to the allure of a new car, but still…. His counsel went something like this: Yes, a new car would be great. But before you decide, give your old car a good wash, and clean it up inside. Then stand back and take a long look at it. Think about adding a car payment and other expenses to what you owe and what you want. Still want it? Well, then. Enjoy.

I didn’t buy that new car. My old clunker served me well for another ten years.

These days, it isn’t buying the big stuff that seems to be a problem. It’s the countless little things–only an app away–that add up. My defenses are usually pretty good. However, because the phone wouldn’t stop nagging me, I downloaded the “app.” I haven’t figured out how to use it yet and I probably won’t.

Life rolls over me too fast as it is.

Today I stepped out my front door and walked down the block to watch the first runners come through my neighborhood in the annual KC Marathon. At this point, they’ve already been running for about twenty miles. About a half-mile farther along, the course begins a mostly downhill path to the finish, after 26.2 miles of endurance.

I love them. I cheer for them. Hundreds of regular people with genuine pluck. (Webster’s: spirit, courage, resolution, fortitude.)

Here’s my moment of braggadocio: in 1979, I ran the first Kansas City Marathon (all 26.2 miles of it) in a time of four hours and seventeen minutes. I trained hard. For most of a year, I got up in the morning, in the frigid dark of winter and the sticky heat of summer, to put in my training miles before heading off to work. I followed a training plan from a popular running book so as to avoid injury and get the most out of my training. When I crossed the finish line, I felt totally triumphant over my own body, which was not exactly equipped by Mother Nature for distance running.

With the perspective of time, I realize that there were other things going on with me that year. Difficulties at work. Yearning for new goals. Battling with aging (at 33?) and weight gain. Picking a BIG (and unlikely) achievement provided exactly the space I needed in my head and in my life to work through it all. And, by the way, I also got bragging rights forever. You only have to finish ONE marathon to claim it.

I’m pretty sure that picking a goal and aiming high are built into my personality. However, I don’t believe that competing with others or “winning” is a necessary component of that. Looking ahead to some desired end brings hope, yes, but only if it also brings joy along the way.

Here’s a poem from those training days, never published.

MORNING RUN
 
This hour
the eye of the city shuts
over houses ten thousand dreams
deep. I’m drawn
down the center of things,
under the horns of the moon,
ears canny to windhush,
featherhover, leafsift,
oh, and the story in stars
where the sword of Orion
points me, points me
home.

That isn’t to say I don’t lie. I’m just not very good at it.

When I was a kid, my mother’s personal spaces were strictly off limits: her purse, her dresser drawers, her writing desk. Of course, nothing could be more intriguing to an 8-year-old daughter than any of these. So one day, I sneaked for a snoop into that Top Secret Dresser Drawer. At once I came across a small gold container. As I pried at the lid with my little fingers, suddenly it popped off–and SQUISH went my thumb into the creamy red rouge inside. Talk about red-handed. I hastily replaced the lid, put the rouge back in the drawer as I hoped I had found it, scrubbed my thumb, and kept my mouth shut.

Tense days passed before my mother confronted her daughters, all three of us, and asked, “Who has been in my dresser drawer?” At that moment, I learned that I would never grow up to be a politician or a poker player. The culprit didn’t have to say a word. “Written all over my face.” That’s how it went down.

In a favorite movie, The American President, the character played by Annette Bening tells her boyfriend, the President, played by Michael Douglas, that she knows when he’s not telling the truth. “It’s that thing you do with your face,” she says. I know. I know.

I’m not good at lying–in person, especially, but even on paper. Perhaps that’s why I write poems. Poems, I think, are all about diving for the truth. Some might say my range is rather limited. So here’s my excuse…

WHY I AM NOT A POET
 
a poem for Annie Finch in amphibrachs* mostly
 
I’ve never had children, a miscarriage, or an abortion;
was never rejected or beaten or sexually forced by
my father; have not yet experienced the death of my mother,
the loss of a sibling by suicide; never divorced.
 
I always succeeded in school, only bullied a little;
at one time relinquished religion, but then I came back.
I married a man who can cook; never took to the bottle;
discovered there’s pretty good money in being a hack.
 
My politics waffle, although I’m concerned for the Third World.
I often recycle. I’ve worked through my feminist rage.
Just fooling with words is a lousy raison for a poet
so just turn the page.
 
Barbara Loots

 
*amphibrach is a term for a “foot” of poetic meter that goes duh-DAH-duh. In this case, what you’re getting is approximately amphibracic pentameter–five feet of amphibrachs in each line. Annie Finch is a poet, scholar, and teacher whose workshop I enjoyed once upon a time at the West Chester Poetry Conference.

I took a turn helping out with a kid’s creative activity sponsored by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in a big tent at a popular annual Art Fair. Between handing out crayons and cutouts and stapling crowns and tidying up tables, I had a chance to observe the hundreds of people passing by.

Guess what? Like snowflakes. No two alike. Naturally I got to wondering why we have a culture in America that seems to promote sameness. Never mind that we talk a lot about “diversity.” Difference still makes us uncomfortable. We are critical of others, and critical of ourselves. What does it mean to be too short, too tall, too thin, too fat, too old, too [name the skin color here], too tacky? And those are only the visible characteristics!

What I observed on that art fair day was people enjoying themselves. Their children, their lovers, their food and drink, their stroll in the sunshine that cost them nothing.

I’m writing this almost two months in advance of the election. By the time I post it, I hope that the screaming politics will have died down. At least the media frenzy. Perhaps we will all know better what role in the work of civilization we must ourselves perform into the future. It will be good to remember the families strolling around the art fair. Because we all want the same things: food and shelter, meaningful work and carefree play, love and peace and a vision of human beauty and creativity that transcends “right” and “wrong.”

We want freedom to experience the joy of life. We want it for everyone on earth.

Don’t we?

Patches of gold in the walnut branches are a sure sign of the changing season. Showers of little yellow leaves flutter past my study window. The walnuts are the first trees to lose their leaves at the beginning of autumn. I know, too, that the walnut trees will be the last to leaf out in spring. The branches remain so bare so far into the spring that every year I’m almost certain that our two walnut trees–one on each side of our house–have died.

I’m happy to live in a neighborhood with many trees, including a white oak that is, I’m told, the largest measured white oak tree in the state of Missouri. It is magnificent, although the homeowners regret the humongous branch that crashed down on their roof. We cherish a redbud tree in our front yard, and a plum tree in the back. This year we planted a dogwood. Downhill from our house, old sycamores line the street that runs through a former streambed where pioneer families watered their stock.

Poplars, maples, towering pines, and weeping willows all have different voices in the wind. Trees speak of what lived before us, and what may live after us. What story might this 300-year-old oak in Ohio tell? The photo doesn’t begin to capture its character. Standing near it, I could imagine its wisdom, like one of Tolkien’s Ents.

Loose Park, Kansas City

Autumn leaves sing in a higher pitch,
going from a hush to a hiss.

So soon the lullaby of summer ends
in a last, cold kiss.

 

Barbara Loots

Somewhere I came across the quip, “Cosmology is theology for people who can do math.” If I could start over (perhaps I can!) I might pursue science and mathematics as the best languages for discovering, if not the meaning of life, at least the making of it.

October 16th is my mother’s birthday. She and her three siblings were all born on the sixteenth of the month. I’m not sure what that signifies, but I tend to interpret many small coincidences of daily life as evidence–evidence of the universe as a wholeness, a pattern, a seamless fabric. Humanity has barely begun to explore its mysteries. As a species, we haven’t had enough time.

For me, miracles, extra-sensory perception, visions, Eureka! moments, falling in love, musical genius, and countless other mysteries might be earth-centric expressions of an other-worldly context we haven’t discovered yet.

Meanwhile, I ponder the stars.

The ancients used the stars to navigate, to make decisions about agriculture, to envision portents for their beliefs and actions. Today we have more technical knowledge of the stars as far as our devices can see into space. But we are still not much nearer to telling the story of how the stars, and the creatures of stardust, including ourselves, came to be. Why they came to be is a question science and mathematics cannot answer.

So I turn to theology, poetry, and a perpetual sense of wonder to give my life meaning and purpose, along with an infinite sense of connection to all the stuff in the universe.
 
 

 
WHAT IS
 
 
Cosmology is really just theology for people who can do math.
  –anonymous internet remark
 
Most of the universe, say scientists,
is undetectable, a force so vast
that planets, stars, all matter rushing past
our eyes and instruments, cannot resist,
and even light is now regarded less
as the eternal boundary of time.
 
Who is to say which art is more sublime?
Astronomers and theologians guess
the origin of earth, of humankind,
whether of God or mathematics made–
for both, the thought of what is undisplayed
a dark, compelling suction in the mind.
 
 
Barbara Loots

Skip this if you’re not the least bit curious about how to get thin(ner) and fit(ter) and live to a healthy(er) old age. I’m already there–old age that is–and this is my story.

Chubby as a child, I’ve fought the battle of fat accumulation for most of my life. I’ve tried a lot of “diets.” They all work. Until I quit them. My challenge: how do I find a way of eating I can live with contentedly that helps me maintain a healthy weight forever? For my Final Answer, go to the link for Diet Doctor at the right.

For the record, my highest weight ever was close to 200 lbs. For a 5’3″ gal, that’s a lot to lug around. To achieve this impressive size, I said “to hell with it” and followed the Fast Food Diet: Mickey D’s drive-thru for breakfast, pizza for lunch, and Captain Seafood for dinner (it’s fish, right??) Waking up to my best interests in the year of my 50th birthday, I turned it around. Twenty years later, I’m pretty much on a steady course.

Controlled eating takes discipline. But nothing like the discipline required to perform deliberate acts for the purpose of maintaining healthy heart and lungs, muscles and bones, joints and neurons. That would be called (groan-n-n-n) exercise. Over the years, I’ve picked activities I actually enjoy: jogging, home exercise videos, gym classes, ice skating lessons, yoga, walking. I like my exercise convenient and, for the most part, solitary.

Note: The key to both of these disciplines–eating and exercise–is enjoyment. NOBODY sticks with a plan or a purpose in which they find no joy. Some days, I freely admit, are more joyful than others. I didn’t say this is a piece of cake, if you’ll pardon the expression.

BEFORE

AFTER