Category Archives: relationships

Invite Fear to Tea

Sally Barris, in her lovely concert at WFMT in Chicago last Saturday night, sang a song that reminded me of this poem of mine. I wrote it at a rapidly changing, chaotic time in my life when fear felt particularly dominant. I was considering how to neutralize fear’s hold over me. (The second poem was the very next one I wrote, a vivid description you might recognize.)

How much power do you give up to fear, repressing, denying or pushing it under? What if we could…

5/20/05

Invite Fear to Tea

What would it look like, feel like,
to invite fear to tea,
warily circle, then sit, sipping?
No judgment, no struggle,

only acknowledgment and being with,
not to understand or accommodate
or even talk with,
not to lessen or wrestle with.

Just to sit, sipping tea,
graciously, neutrally,
looking eye into eye,
quite normally.

Invite fear to tea,
sit down naturally,
calmly, not as with an enemy,
engage in social niceties:

Sugar? One lump or two? Milk or lemon?
Glance away thoughtful,
not stare or press for conversation,
not in curiosity, not in capitulation.

If ever I could…

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005
On my CD, “Full Blooming”

And the next poem:
5/21/05

The Edge

Too much has changed
to find the old balance.
As I try to move back,
spikes shred my tires.

The edge of the cliff
is not where I left it.
Can you wonder why
I keep falling off?

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2005

One of the most powerful ways I currently deal with fear was suggested in a Facebook post I read a few months ago. It is an affirmation: “I am free from…” fill in the blank with whatever is troubling you. So in this case I say (aloud or to myself): “I am free from fear” or “I am free of fear.” Immediately I feel much lighter. A way of stating a fervent intention. It may seem too easy, but it is easy enough to do the experiment. Let me know how it goes.

Letting Go and New Beginnings on Sale!!

2011 LGNB 95 smaller front coverD ebook for Smashwords-2

Take advantage of the Smashwords.com Summer/ Winter Sale for 75% OFF my award-winning book, Letting Go and New Beginnings! This makes it $1!

Go to https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/39211 and enter coupon code SSW75 at checkout. (Code is also in the right column of the book page.)

Supports those who are going through any kind of transition, and aren’t we all! This sale is only on during the month of July, so don’t wait. A great time to check out other Smashwords authors while you are there.

“It’s the story of loving and letting go, the bittersweet feeling all parents feel, all people feel when our cherished ones start to move on. I found the poems to be beautiful and timely—mirroring the transition I find myself in now—letting go, new beginnings. I also love how the imagery of the photographs expresses and compliments the intentions of the poems.
Karen Gottlieb, archetypal consultant, fabric artist, co-owner of International Galleries, and mother of two daughters

Virtual Choir 4: Bliss

I am greatly interested in the way creativity prompts and inspires further creative expression. I think we need more of that. Virtual Choir 3 and 4 (and Eric Whitacre, of course) inspired many poems for me. See links below for previous VC related posts.

In the last year I have lost five people in my immediate circle, including my Mom, whom I was very close to, and my youngest brother. In addition, my dear youngest sister is struggling with stage 4 breast cancer. (Now all four of us girls in my family have had cancer.) The year before both my in-laws died. So I am deeply grieving, trying to work through and process and let go and remember and listen to my inner voice and still take care of my health. For me, singing in VC 4: Bliss was filled with challenges and also huge gifts.

I was driving and began thinking about the many reasons I felt so compelled to sing in Virtual Choir 4 and the phrase “5 minute respite” came to mind. Since I am a poet I have a notebook in the car. I pulled over and followed that thought. The poem below is the result. (5 minutes refers to the approximate time it takes to sing the choir part of VC 4: Bliss once through.)

6/10/13

5 Minute Respite
(VC 4: Bliss)

To sing perchance to dream
when anything is possible
where irretrievable losses
can be restored and
hope refreshed

Melding what is best in each
welding strength to strength
assembled from
determined persistence
to overcome any barriers

Envisioned by the one
encouraged by the team
the whole more
strongly beautiful and real
than any sticky web

of pervasive grief.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2013

Note: Definition of respite (pronounced ‘respit) in the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary: 1) a period of temporary delay, 2) an interval of rest or relief.

Other Virtual Choir (and Eric Whitacre) posts and poems:
https://www.fullblooming.com/inspiration-and-creation
https://www.fullblooming.com/a-dream-about-eric-whitacre
https://www.fullblooming.com/more-poems-inspired-by-virtual-choir-3-water-night
https://www.fullblooming.com/being-more-fully-yourself

More VC poems to come. What has inspired you lately? What did you do about it?

Anniversary

Today is the 39^th anniversary of our wedding. It was 1974 and we were 22 years old. I had just graduated from the University of Michigan three weeks before and Stephen had just finished his first year law school final exams one week before. It was a Saturday of Memorial weekend, just like today. That night we stayed at a hotel (the Dearborn Inn) for the first time in my life–a very mini honeymoon. And then we moved our stuff the next day into married student housing in Ann Arbor. In thinking back a few days ago, I wrote this poem which I read to Stephen this morning at the kitchen table. We had a lovely, low-key day being together. Happy anniversary one more time before midnight, Stephen!

5/23/13

Nearing Anniversary
(For STM)

I might tell you
what I remember
from 40 years ago

and though you were there
and we were simpatico
your memories may not be

even recognizable to me,
either morphed over time,
put through that gauze sieve

we each have or
true from your point of view
but maybe the image

has blurred or completely erased
and what mattered to me
enough to file away

just vanished from your life story.
Or we each can remember bits
and piece together say, that date the first summer

when we were supposed to go to a horse show
but ended up making out on the beach
and you remember the color and make of the borrowed car

or where we went for dinner after
and both of us recall the unexpectedly cold wind
blowing off the lake, the threat of rain

and I remember the insistence of your lips on mine
as we made our tent under the sandy blanket
and my passionate body awakened for the first time

like an iron slowing heating up to red hot
not an incandescent bulb you could turn on or off,
the abandon of desire almost scaring me with intensity.

What are your stories about long-time relationships? How reliable is memory? How can you tell?

Still there! Seyfried Jewelry in Ann Arbor where we got our wedding bands.

Moving

This Space of Grace blog is moving soon to a new home, integrated into my newly designed website, FullBlooming.com. All the same posts will be there in the archives and I will be writing more than ever. I am grateful to blogger for this time of connection (since 2009) and I trust I will see you all (and hear from you too) at the new location. You will be automatically transferred, you won’t miss anything so no worries. Thank you to all my readers and to those whose comments encouraged me to keep writing.

Recently I have been researching family history online. Many reasons why this is the time to do it. Questions to answer like: is what I remember actually true? Here is a new poem:

Peony by the Driveway, 2012 Copyright MDMikus

2/8/13

Photo Albums

My mother, one year maybe in the ‘70’s,
took the time to gather all the family photos
and for each of her 7 children made a life story

with bits of baby hair, maybe a curl from the first haircut,
and the tiny beaded wristlet from the maternity hospital
with DUBAY and a blue medal of the Blessed Mother.

Baby pics, posed and natural,
some of us looking so similar, had to tell who was who
by the year on the back or other cues.

And inside the front cover an envelope of negatives
was taped to later make some prints.
In mine, a copy of an old letter from my Grandma Schulte

with news to reassure her daughter, my Mom,
that my brother and I were alright staying with her.
She wrote our daily schedule including snacks and naps,

a newsy description of our interests,
her frequent concern for my hair to stay out of my eyes—
the solution: to give me a permanent.

The love X 7 poured into each album,
her lasting gift, I opened today
and found how close or far off was memory,

how radiantly beautiful
was my mother.

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