FEELING RIGHT AT HOME WITH JACK RIDL

 A series of essays....

"THE CAKE WAS DELICIOUSLY SWEET AND SATISFYING."

....as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

I wish, growing-up in the 1950’s, that Jack Ridl had been a part of my life. 

I wish he had been there when several neighbor kids, along with my older brother and me, decided to dig a deep, earth cave out in the empty corner lot under the single, gnarled mulberry tree. Jack would have enjoyed the freedom we all felt in that haphazard cave right before the parents discovered us deep in the worm infested soil.

I wish I had been there to hold his hand and weep together when he and his family lost a baby boy (brother) at birth. The ‘50’s were often cruel and insensitive years.

I would have built cardboard turrets and lofty lofts in our backyard clubhouse in honor of Jack if we had been childhood friends. My ‘gang’ settled for large appliance boxes supplied by parents who were fortunate enough to be able to upgrade their kitchens and we cut tiny push-open windows on both sides and drew a version of the skull and crossbones above the door; youthful landlubbers dreaming of pirates and adventures at sea or a reminder of our own mortality?

JACK IN TEACHING MODE

JACK EXPLAINING HIS CONCEPT
ON WRITING MEMOIRS
 

I first met Jack last year. It was April of 2018 when he gave prompts for writing about our personal history (memoirs) and examples of his own writings that spoke volumes about his youth and growing-up and what circumstances helped to make him the man he is today. 

This was one of the best writing classes I have ever had the opportunity to enjoy and learn from! 

Marsha, a longtime friend of Jack and his talented wife, Julie, and I decided to treat ourselves and drive to the Douglas Congregational United Church of Christ located in Douglas, Michigan,about an hour’s drive from Kalamazoo, to study under the guidance of Jack Ridl at his three hour writing workshop. The quaint, white clapboard, and handsomely steepled venue fit all of us perfectly and by the end of our session my heart knew I was part of this welcoming  family.

You see, Jack Ridl is a writer, poet, teacher, mentor, family man, and......friend to so many of us! 

Jack is a former professor at Hope College in their English Department where he taught for 37 years. He and Julie founded the visiting writers series at Hope where his students named him their Outstanding Professor and Favorite Professor. The Carnegie Foundation named him Michigan Professor of the Year in 1996.

Jack retired from teaching in 2009 and is the author of several poetry collections including Broken Symmetry, Practicing to Walk Like a Heron, and Losing Season, all having won numerous national awards.

JACK'S LATEST POETRY COLLECTION

His latest collection, Saint Peter and the Goldfinch, brought us back to this little church last Friday where a gala celebrating the launch of his new collection was to take place. I could hardly wait to purchase my own copy of Saint Peter and the Goldfinch, whose cover had been beautifully illustrated by his daughter, Meridith, and be the proud recipient of his personal signature somewhere on its title page. I was not disappointed.

JACK CREATING A 'MUSICAL COMMUNION' WITH THE JOHN SHEA TRIO

The little church was bursting at the seams with friends, fans, former students, and family. The cake was deliciously sweet and satisfying. Crystal clear musical notes wafted out from the sanctuary in various ways during the festivities that evening beginning with songs sung by the Persisterhood Choir and the jazz beats of the John Shea Trio who performed with Jack in a ‘musical communion’ between poetry and jazz.

The highlight of the evening, of course, was Jack reading selected poems from his newest collection up at the podium when he sent chills of joy through all of us while he expressed his personal history and thoughts regarding the mystery of love and how he imagines love to be via personal experiences set in poetic form. A brilliant performance!

JOHN SHEA TRIO PERFORMING
AT THE 'AFTER PARTY'

BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS
ACCENTED THE GALA

Smiling boyishly while crinkling his eyes, which happens often, Jack pours out the deep respect and kindness that flows from within his heart and blesses everyone with his love. We all become a part of this long journey in life that Jack began so many years ago while growing up in Pittsburgh. Now, having lived and worked for many years in Michigan, he  conducts his workshops and readings while continuing to delight his fans with new material based on his loving and gentle lifestyle.

I love this sweet man.

The concept of love can be quite simple.

As if he had been my neighbor (playmate and chum) for years and we’d shared digging an earth fort or creating a clubhouse out of appliance boxes together, with each Jack Ridl poem I read, I discover more and more about the author and his intimate curiosity connected with everyday life, loss, discovery, love, and the passing of the seasons. Jack has helped to create an interesting journey that most of us can relate to and feel right at home with but, ultimately, includes Jack's personal history and deepest thoughts. 

My appreciation goes out to Wayne State University Press, Julie and Meridith Ridl, Pastor Sal of the Douglas Congregational United Church of Christ, the people of Douglas, my dear friend, Marsha Meyer, who introduced me to Jack, and last but foremost, to Jack Ridl himself.

Remember...April is National Poetry Month!  

JACK SIGNING COPIES OF
'SAINT PETER AND THE GOLDFINCH'

Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved

UNSETTLING FEELINGS: PRETTY LITTLE BOXES

A series of essays....

   Courtesy of Webpackaging

....as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

Occasionally, certain prompts bring about reasons to share past stories with all of you. Several days ago I received a new comment on a story I’d written and published in June of 2017, shortly after the all too real nightmare our nation was abruptly thrown into began: The placement of a very strange and harmful man in the White House. 

Truth be told, the nightmare began late in the evening of November 8, 2016, and it has not diminished (in fact, it has only intensified) since then. 

I recalled a story I’d been told when I was quite young that instructed me to place each unsettled feeling or negative emotion in its own ‘pretty little box’ and confront each one separately and only when I felt the time was right to do so. It’s important to open each box and comprehend the importance of its contents within your life and deal with it completely before moving on. This is the origin of my story and I would like to share it with all of you once again.

Pretty Little Boxes

June of 2017

Life seems to be charging towards me in fragments.

They are small, broken pieces that float in the air like tiny feathers at the mercy of an afternoon breeze; sunshine enhanced bits of reality and imagination intertwining with each shift and subtle nuance of emotion. They are multi-colored cotton threads of fact and fiction that float along in a suspended state, oblivious to the passage of time or thought or movement. They are waiting, waiting....for me? Shrugging my shoulders abjectly, I attempt to carry-on as a functioning adult.

It is imperative that we set aside the time to assess our lives, take a personal inventory of our emotional possessions, even when (especially when) the fragments feel more like shards of glass rather than innocent feathers. We are human. We bleed. The lifeblood from our wounds spills down upon the soil at our feet and gravitates to the small streams and rivers that flow out to the sea....from whence we came. We have traveled full-circle.

I spend many days collecting my life’s fragments and placing them in tiny boxes. Some of these boxes hold dozens of pieces while others may be limited to only a few, even one, single piece. If the shard is an enormous challenge for me, it might remain in solitary confinement within its cardboard prison until I can, finally, come to terms with it; It’s label of importance scribbled in crimson with the blood from a recent wound.

Am I good enough?

   Will this major change in my life be for the better?

      How well do I deal with people who hate?

         When is it time to try harder or time to give up on something?

            Why do I allow self-doubt to control me?

               Self worth...

                  Am I strong enough to handle conflicts with my adult children?                                    

                     Instead of wiping out your pain, I should have sat with you and helped

                        You get through it! Life is learning how to suffer and survive, as well

                            As sharing life’s happiness.

Issues, issues, issues. Yes, there is a box here for everything!

If I am lucky, the containers are neatly stacked and labeled. Over time, they begin to resemble hand-painted, wooden blocks tucked away in the far corner of a child’s nursery, sometimes neglected but never forgotten about. How does one forget about his own soul?

Spiritless, often cruel, and unsympathetic examples of soulless figures do exist throughout history and the melodic tempo of time. 

When a prime example of this behavior happens to be a major political leader who guides the people down a winding and certain path of destruction with open notes of malice and contempt being his preferred Pied Piper's melody, we must become deeply concerned! We must become aware of the long term, negative consequences attached to his current actions and how they will affect all of us within our own emotional and physical capacity.

History has a way of proving that it is possible to exist without possessing a soul, without a personal check and balance system that, normally, comprises our individual emotional and moral standards. Some people exist to nourish their bodies, alone; their souls, having been sold to the highest bidder for shiny, earthly trinkets, have been professionally extracted and replaced by blank eyes that define the non-existence of rational behavior. 

Standing high above us on the mountain’s peak, he spreads his arms and surrounds himself with inhuman, callous, and hateful trolls that have been cut from the same cloth. Looking down upon the living souls groveling below, his ambition is to draw them deep into his fold by rejuvenating the hate and bigotry that has been bubbling right beneath their feet since the beginning of time.    

 It is important to be able to counterbalance such hatefulness with wisdom. With a ‘Sword of Damocles’ hanging right above us, it is even more important to be able to sort out the contents of our ‘pretty little boxes’ and, in turn, weaken the power of hatefulness that tends to dilute our wisdom.

The collective fragments form larger pieces as they settle within the boxes. Will time and purpose allow my thoughts to unite and form their own boundaries and shapes like puzzle pieces waiting to be snapped back together in order to recreate the original and loving picture they were cut from? 

It is important that the multi-colored threads of my life reunite into manageable sizes that, with my help, will complete a coherent tapestry of the journey I will continue to follow while marching to the cadence of:

Patience. Time. Understanding. Joy. Happiness. Hope. Balance. Spirit. Desire. Healing. Wisdom. Love.

And yet, the fragments keep coming. They are not shy.      

Learning how to manage the contents of each box with continued enlightenment, I open each one as if it were a little gift to myself. While tucking an emptied box aside, I am one step closer on my road to understanding that our dreams, hopes, and desires really can come true.  If we work hard, love one another, and remember to believe, we can empty our ‘little boxes’ and gradually fill our hearts with the kindness and love we all deserve.

Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved

ABANDONED

A series of essays....

"HOW MANY ABANDONED DREAMS HAVE
FLOWN OUT OF YOUR TURQUOISE WINDOW.......?"

as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

THE WARMTH and softness of a lover’s kiss has become a blissful memory as you are left alone to collect your teardrops in a jar positioned on the nightstand beside the abandoned bed that once caressed entangled limbs with its cool cotton sheets. That was a lifetime ago; one gut-wrenching diagnosis ago. The tomorrows will continue to pull at your heartstrings.

HOW MANY abandoned dreams have flown out of your turquoise window that was once cheerfully painted by a starry eyed young man who carried his beautiful bride, draped in ancestral lace, over your threshold so many sunsets ago? I can still observe your stately beauty long before the landscape crept into your very soul, the creamy white stucco peeled away like ancient skin, and the acrid scent of peat fires filtered upwards through your clay chimney pots and out into the lush countryside beyond. I would not have allowed nature to reclaim you, my friend!

GRANDPARENTS

PARENTS

WE SHOULD never abandon the memories of the people, places, and things that have served to mold the spirit that thrives within us. Our ancestors are the rich reminders and historical landmarks that reside in our DNA, for better or worse, and the carriers of genetic information that we pass on into space and time, ad infinitum. Let us, gratefully, become the storytellers that enrich our future generations by helping to keep these memories alive and well.    

WHAT FROSTY springtime morning blankets your brilliant crimson profile with a coat of ice crystals and teases the weary gardener to abandon his oasis of respite? The rich, dark shadow of a naked trellis drapes across your shoulder like a barometric shawl and indicates the possibility of the sun’s warmth as the day progresses. Life is good and carries a myriad of colorful surprises as the mystery of the season unfolds and star-struck gardeners take advantage of your comfort once again!

TO CHILDREN, parents, spouses, and more who consciously choose to create abandoned relatives from those who have loved them unconditionally, it must be asked, why? Emotional cutoff and avoidance are unhealthy coping mechanisms for dealing with anxiety and stress and will reflect upon the innocent grandchild, husband or wife, or grandparent as time goes by. Seeking a solution for all does not have to mean being exposed to negative confrontation. Rather, opening up lines of communication on a gradual scale may be a solution worth looking into if the estrangement initiator truly desires to include her loved ones back into her life and the lives of her family.... 

WHEN POLITICS bites us in the ass and abandons the welfare of the masses in order to provide incomprehensible wealth and prosperity for a privileged few while attacking the general principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community, the definition of democracy itself, it mocks all citizens it was set in place to represent. To forsake the principles by which we grew-up believing in would place us on the same level of our attackers. We must stay calm, carry on, and rise to the top once again. Future generations depend on us!

OFTEN, WE do not have a choice when it comes to determining which of our dreams we must abandon along our journey through this life while a pristine mountainside in Western North Carolina serves as a prime example of this. The twists and turns of a winding road reveal lush foliage, giant trees, and more purple mountains in the distance and was to snake-up to our ultimate hide-away made of split logs and chinking that would fill the breaths between the logs and the mountains that surrounded us. The year 2008 happened and, suddenly, the economic situation was not our friend. Kenmare, the name we had given to our future homestead in North Carolina, sadly, had to be abandoned.

Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved

Photo Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved

COUNTING SHEEP.....COUNTING OUR BLESSINGS!

 A series of essays....

FIVE COLORFUL IRISH FRIENDS

....as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

Blessings are small, individual acts of love given to and received, gratefully, by those who believe that these favors are gifts bestowed by God bringing happiness, approval, or good wishes upon them. Even small blessings are seen as benefits and advantages within this topsy-turvy world we live in and we become most thankful for them as we sift through the alternate possibilities. Having very little money can be seen as a blessing if it, at the very least, provides enough food on the table for survival.

Blessings often come in disguise as if they were guests at a masked ball, identities denied, yet distinguishable by their ultimate good effects. Initially, a ‘blessing in disguise’ might be misconstrued as being negative but, in actuality, the outcome shifts from initial fear to something we might become eternally grateful for. The idea of solemn circumstances such as running late for work or losing a current job....might initiate a more interesting or profitable new position in the future.

The soothing words of the talented lyricist, Irving Berlin, would have us all “counting our blessings instead of sheep!” And, we may ask ourselves...why not?...when all is right with the world while falling asleep counting our blessings instead of our worries. Beating the odds by surviving what could have been a tragedy and having us realize our good fortune is grounds for counting our blessings! When the consequences of our hard work and planning fall short of our expectations, it is important to take note of other incredible things that have happened to us. This idea may just be the most important antidote to sadness the world has ever known!

Early explorers of our vast world, fearful of the unknown, would seek the blessings of their King, Queen, or a high ranking member of the clergy who would invoke a higher power for assistance, support, and inspiration before beginning a long journey by land or sea.

Beauty can be a mixed blessing. The attention received by a person of renowned physical beauty may only be a superficial blessing if others are less likely to take them seriously. We humans are often caught-up somewhere between that which is favorable and sailing adrift upon a sea dotted by active mines....disadvantageous features that we must learn to navigate around in order to survive. Many scientists have proclaimed that discovering the  power of the atom was a mixed blessing. Even as it opened our world to the positive aspects of nuclear power, it made nuclear weapons possible.

We incorporate innumerable blessings into our lives every day, whether we choose to recognize them as such or not. They may be in the form of a short prayer of thanksgiving recited before a meal; enjoying the blessings of peace and prosperity; the devout invocation of blessedness bestowed upon us by a priest during the benediction of a mass; the loving permission to go, proceed, or carry-on in full agreement with the ideas of another person or group of people, as well as being touched by the help or services offered to us by the kindness or good fortunes of others.

As grandparents, we consider our grandchildren to be among our greatest blessings of all! When we are able to travel and explore other lands along with their people and cultures, we are blessed by our newly attained knowledge and may choose to share this knowledge with others upon returning home. Recognizing our own personal talent and being able to utilize it in order to assist, delight, or offer a brighter life to someone else is a blessing we should all strive to achieve. And, having good friends to share everything with is a monumental gift that should never be taken lightly and will be a blessing for life!!

“Good friends are like angels. ~ You don’t have to see them to know they are there.”

At this time of year, may we recall the power and humor of the Irish Blessing and Curse. There are so many to choose from but, here is a sampling:

The blessings and good wishes bestowed upon us through the kindness of others should be cherished and returned in favor to all who require them. When we are blessed enough to be able to understand our own bounty and good fortune and capable of sharing it with those experiencing misfortune, we will then have attained the full benefits of having truly lived a blessed life. 

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! May the bountiful miracles of springtime bless us all with as much warmth and joy required to fill our hearts to the brim after such a long, cold winter.  “May the Irish hills caress you. May her lakes and rivers bless you. May the luck of the Irish enfold you. May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.” Irish Blessing...

Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved

Photo Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved

IRISH LINEN

A series of essays/poems....

STRADDLING THE COUNTY LINES OF GALWAY AND MAYO
ON THE L1601 NORTH OF LOUGH NAFOOEY

....as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

      March 6, 2019

IRISH LINEN

I love the intense contrast between linen blues and natural greens.

Floating in the afternoon sun in waves of powdery freshness,

Crisp flags unfurled for all to see from vehicles passing by

To interested neighbors savoring the sweet scent of clean

While pushing babies in carriages and contemplating the dinner menu.

Framed like a montage of small, textured clips by creamy stucco posts

And sturdy wrought iron gates, we look from the outside....in.

Rationally we allow ourselves to ponder and speculate about

Whose deft hands created the uncomplicated beauty  

Within this simple, Irish space.

Blues and lavenders punch through the soul of green pines, 

Arborvitae, and a thick carpet of grasses accented by

Golden dandelions ripening in the autumn sun;

Dotting the landscape, they are left uncrushed by our mystery laundress.

One kilometer down the narrow road I ask to turn back.

The softened texture and dappled-light charm of this scene

Begged to be captured; insisted upon being preserved,

And shared with others. I knew that I was the person,

The observer, the vehicle, who could make this happen.

I love the imaginative stories behind these linen blues and natural greens.

         

Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

Photo Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes