Category Archives: gratitude

Loss of Robin Williams

Gift Gerbera Daisy by Margaret Dubay Mikus Copyright 2014

First blog post in a while (more is on Facebook). Wow the summer is going by fast!

I am very moved by the loss of Robin Williams, remembering all the varied, pitch-perfect roles over the years and the tears-running-down-the-face laughing at his comic genius. But there is a cost to fame. Much is being said about mental illness and addiction, but what pushes someone over the edge? I know very dark places and I am grateful I made it through. Thank you to all who helped me at the perfect times, so I could weather life-storms.

This poem from my upcoming book, Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope and Healing, came to mind to share today. Life in the public eye is especially hard for those who are sensitive souls. Although written with Robert Pattinson in the title I was thinking about all performers in the relentless public eye.

10/20/10

For Robert Pattinson
And the others

To be the perfect mirror
so that others see
what they most desire

is a special kind of hell.
To not be real,
anything your own,

celebrated but
not seen.
Invisible in your own skin,

when you step out
the image you created
precedes and masks you.

Who takes the trouble
to get to know you
in all quirky human complexity?

The more you say
“I am not a fictional character,”
the less you are believed,

an immense price to pay
for unexpected popularity,
ultimately unsought,

no matter the salary.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2010

Flowers Catch April Sun by Margaret Dubay Mikus Copyright 2014

Portrait of Michael Smith

On a humid, 86 degree day like today in Chicago, it may be hard to remember what a long and cold and snowy winter it was. After having major surgery in December, my first big outing was to a concert by Michael Smith with my husband, Stephen, and friends, Randy and Wendie. It was a big deal even cautiously walking on the icy asphalt of the parking lot.

Our seats were in the second row. I felt like I could see Michael Smith very clearly, inside and out. The show was both deeply moving and hilarious. Because I did not get to talk with him after the show, an insistent poem percolated all the way driving home. I did not write this as a “fan” poem, but rather what I saw as true. Parts of myself perhaps, reflected back from him.

I read this to a few people and they urged me to send it to him. In tracking down an email address, I learned more about his life and accomplishments. I felt a bit intimidated, but sent it anyway. He graciously responded right away: “Thank you, Margaret. I love the poem.” What a gift! Lit me up for days….

What has someone done for you that warmed your heart unexpectedly?

1/19/14

Portrait of Michael Smith
Concert at Lake County Folk Club

He was not old
but old enough
to be comfortable
exposing bits of his humanness,
to be felt and heard and seen
without disguise sometimes, to be
clever and mischievous, gracious and generous.

To be naked enough
to make us cry or laugh,
you have to put in the years,
put in your time as apprentice,
to gather the stories, weave or live them,
to know what is what,
to see the risks and still be willing

enough so some pieces fit,
and brave enough or fearless
to go out and let out some
of the accumulated multitudes of children,
all the practice paying off, the determination
to deliver the songs yet again.
Amen.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2014

From Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing, coming in summer 2014. Check FullBlooming.com for more details.

Here is my reading, in my fourth video.

I Know That (song version)

May is my month, with my birthday, Mother’s Day and my wedding anniversary. As a 62nd birthday challenge I wanted to get something unstuck: post my first video on YouTube. I’ve had a channel since 2011 and I would almost do it, but pull back. Always some snag. How to do the recording on iMovie? How to load the video? It felt too personal or too exposed, or laryngitis, or not enough time, or the need to wear makeup, or whatever…. Over the last few years, partly through Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, I became more confident of my ability to do tech stuff. I got a Blue Yeti microphone –which is the coolest– to record VC 3 and VC 4.

My office recording set up

I made the light that Jack Rowland recommended last year. I learned enough of iMovie to submit my video for the last Virtual Choir. Thank you also to Gene Waddle and Elisabeth Smith and “the team” for your encouragement and to the worldwide family that is Virtual Choir.

Thank you to Tom Prasada-Rao and Cary Cooper for their bravery in posting very personal and moving songs. And to Charlotte McDaniel who keeps on learning and posting her lovely video creations. You all inspired me to make the leap.

I’ve had some recent clarity about my job: to deliver the poems that come to me. At first it meant reading in person and in print, then on a CD, and now on video, where the words can reach someone and help to heal, inspire, comfort, give voice to an experience, encourage, support, connect with.

I am very excited to tell you: here is my first video, I Know That (song version). Originally published in my book, As Easy as Breathing, I wrote the poem in the middle of chemotherapy, when losing my hair was imminent, a very big deal. (I also sang this on my CD, Full Blooming.)

I did lose my hair, but not my eyebrows. And I was grateful for that. My aunt (in the song) had just died of breast cancer and my dear Grandma had also just passed away. I had recovered from surgery, then began chemo, with radiation to come, as was the standard of care then. I was trying to not get pulled down by the losses and to stay focused on healing.

So here goes: A New Beginning.

Thanks for being there! What creation have you been putting off? Go to it!

Mirroring Back to You

In response to my long-overdue Full Blooming News e-newsletter this week, I heard back from some people. Lovely connection!

My friend Charlotte from Georgia, commented that I even wrote my response to her poetically. We were talking about getting frustrated and discouraged sometimes, feeling like giving up. And I told her a realization that had been helpful to me lately, to get out of the impossible traps we set for ourselves. (What does it mean to be successful, anyway?) She took a paragraph of mine, added line breaks and color, and the result is below, which I like it a lot. Thank you!

Charlotte is a multi-talented woman who is a pianist, composer, gardener, photographer, memoirist and makes lovely videos using all these elements. Her latest is here. She inspires me!

What have your friends mirrored back to you lately?

4/2/14

This is what I have come to understand:
my job, should I choose to accept it,
is to deliver the poems.

To get them out in the world
to as many as can be helped.
It is about redefining success
as I had been longing for.

Success is doing my job:
delivering the poems—
to an individual,
to a group,
as best I can.
And that is all.

To do that means
being as healthy
and balanced
and grounded as I can—
every day.

It means listening inside
and paying attention
before I “fall off the cliff.”

If you did not get your copy of the April Full Blooming News, with all kinds of new stuff from the past 6 months, check your spam folder or sign up here. (For those with Gmail, check other folders like “promotion” or “updates” that it might be filed in.) I do not share email addresses with anyone for any reason. Happy Spring!

Belated Happy Easter!

Inspired by and for Corax

Virtual Choir (and Eric Whitacre) has inspired many poems. This is another. VC is a virtual community and a real one too. Many VC members have met in real life, but whether they meet or not they support and encourage each other. And that positive energy spills over into real life. We are all better for it. This poem was inspired by VC member, Corax, aka Jeff. I am grateful for the connection.

1/28/14

On Imperfection
For Corax

On the other side of darkness
the past looks far away,
and if I didn’t know better,
mostly forgotten.

Live in the now,
isn’t that what they say?
I agree mostly and also intend
to remember my lessons:

not to repeat same old mistakes,
not to let the unconscious pilot the course,
to remember to breathe,
to always be kind and

to forgive, every day forgive
imperfection. For here we learn
by being in form, subject to complex patterns
we cannot sense or anticipate.

If we were perfect—
which we are somewhere—
what would be the point of
choosing to go to Earth-school?

As long as we are here—
those numbered precious days,
those rare allotted minutes—
we have work to do.

Get on with it.

To read all my Virtual Choir/ Eric Whitacre inspired poems

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