BTT #55: Attenuation

On By Lona GyntIn Uncategorized

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Attenuation

·
Skies burn blue
But rest pale
Inside my eyes.
Tidal foam soaks
My feet then
Seeps breathless
Beneath the sand.
My words feel
Only the
Echo of shapes
Tracing my lips.
I once gulped
Life in draughts
Slaking thirsts
Unquenchable by
Careful measured sips.
·
– Lona Gynt, February 2019
·
This is posted for dVerse Quadrille hosted by Mish. The secret word is “sip.”  Here is the link.
February has seemed dead and depersonalizing for me.  This is a dangerous place to be.  I had not been able to write or feel.  I feel like the idea of me.  Gratefully, I can feel a spark lighting. I hope to be moving from attenuation to full life feeling.  I might even hazard a picture…  soon.
·
All rights reserved for text and images to Lona Gynt, February 2019
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36 thoughts on “BTT #55: Attenuation”

  1. Therisa Godwaldt

    Lona, have you thought of using a SAD lamp, during the darkness of winter? Something that I’ve been procrastinating over the past several years. Just a thought.

    Right now, I wish that I run my feet, in the warm sandy beach. As another 15 cm of snow, is predicted for the greater Toronto area. The joys of living in a winter wonderland. Least, I don’t have to drive, in this weather.

    It’s great to see, you’re sharing your thoughts and photography, my friend. Only 2 more days, until March begins. Hang in there, Lona.

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    1. Thanks Therisa, it is good to be back. I think this patch for me has had less to do withs seasonal affective and more with depersonalization that seems to crop up whenever I start feeling like I will never socially transition, but I am coming out of that funk too, it is going to happen, I have a plan. Your poems and notes have been meaningful to me while I have been gone. Thanks.

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  2. Your two photos, the bread in this sandwich, echo your words beautifully. The sun on the expanse and yet, when we feel February inside, we are that bird perched on a boot, absorbing but silent. Thank you for sharing this.

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  3. I relate to how you opened the poem — the whole thing, really — that you can see the reality before you but nothing translates to your world. You say you’ve been unable to feel but at least you can translate your world. I get it. I wish I could do what you can do, but I can’t count the number of first lines I’ve gotten down only for my next moment’s self to be all, Nah that ain’t it. What about spiritually dry times? Is there a purpose in going through the motions? Do Mormons take in the Eucharist?

    Oh yeah, I drove through Birmingham on 2/17 and thought of you. It was pouring rain through all of Alabama and we were listening to a Khaled Husseini audio book. A pensive day (my birthday too) fitting the mood of this poem. Although I should ask you someday about secular weddings. Like, everyone said it was fun (the key word there) a blast, the wedding of the century, but I didn’t feel it. I was happy to hear the Afghan read about love and longsuffering as my dear husband dozed and you were somewhere nearby, ruminating on the sermon…

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    1. Hello Amaya my friend. So many salient observations and questions here. THANK YOU! I like the reference to this piece as a translation, that does seem to fit, life as a different language in which I am feigning fluency, or at least recalling having been able to be immersed in it. But I do feel hope and stirrings with the realizations, I have a plan and have been blessed with feeling a divine hand and love, even as I start to become feel ever more estranged from my particular little world. Like the Words of the hymn, “He answers silently, reaches my reaching… He only one.” Mormons do participate in a communion ordinance of Bread and Water, symbolic of union with the flesh and blood of the Savior, remembrance of His sacrifice, and a renewal of baptismal covenants. And I do think going through the motions can be helpful, as a bridge and a nexus to hopes to fuller times, and closer presence. The more I think about it though, I think that the only purpose we have here is to try to learn to love fully, and my particular dry and attenuated patch is of less import than the imperative of love- as long as I can keep giving it a try. I just need to remember that a love that requires me to be dead inside is imperfect or perhaps even counter productive, but oh what labyrinths we have built in our human inepititude. But going through the motions may count as trying, which I think is a noble spiritual and ethical pursuit. Keep on with those first lines, I know they will bear fruit from your pilgrim heart.
      I am smiling to think you were in Alabama, so close! I live in Huntsville, on the 17th I went to church, caught up on paper work at the clinic, took a walk with the puppy, played ‘Ticket to Ride’ with my family, I lost (sigh). It would have been fun to meet, but I know that life rolls us forward on its wings and these things can be hard. I was on the Southern end of the state at my daughter’s soccer tournament this weekend where I took the picture of the bird at the beach, I smiled that I was spending a weekend halfway between Harry (Yellow Crane in the Rain) in Mobile and KatieMiaFrederick no doubt whirling dirvishly and joyfully away in Pensacola.

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      2. Thank you my friend. Turns out your words have lifted me, I think I am being resurrected stepwise, emerging from constraints of time. I am grateful for you, and wish a blessed Mother’s Day. I think I am going to reblog “Still” for the day’s remembrance. Blessings.

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      4. Hi Lona,

        My blog is a mess and neglected these days. In quite the six month writer’s funk. I got overwhelmed and made private my dearest poems. Thank you for being such a loyal reader, though that oft-used title doesn’t quite do justice to how well you read my and others’ work. I’ve made ‘Still’ visible again, and thank you for the encouragement and the Mothers Day wishes.

        PS What did you ever name your puppy?

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    1. Thank you for the thoughtful (as ever it is from you) notice, Sarah. I am indeed the girl stuck in the chrysalis, less out of depression and more from not feeling there is a world into which I can safely emerge without jangling it all up even worse thn it is for those who have become enmeshed in my life, but at least life still goes on in the chrysalis. I don’t know if you have seen my poem written by the girl stuck in the chrysalis. If you don’t mind me spamming you with it, here is the link.

      BTT #12.2: Stages of Life


      I appreciate you Sarah, always good to see your smiling face icon (maybe I will get one of those one day, hehe), and your ever kind and insightful words.

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      1. I just went back and read it again – I remember reading it first time round. Interestingly my comment on that is very similar. Obviously I only know you from your writing here, but it seems to me you are on an exhausting journey and need to nurture yourself at times. I was also struck by the yearning for community – the monarchs clumping together – the chrysalis is a solitary place.

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  5. An emotive piece. This especially was very moving to me…..
    “My words feel
    Only the
    Echo of shapes
    Tracing my lips”
    It gave me a vivid visual of the unspoken longing to be spoken.
    I do hope you feel better soon, Lona.

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  10. “Gratefully, I can feel a spark lighting. I hope to be moving from attenuation to full life feeling. I might even hazard a picture… soon.” In an old listserv I was on, way back in the mid-90s, one of the things we would call out to our friends if they were doing something special or going somewhere special was jpgs! jpgs! I’m reviving it here: jpgs! jpgs!

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