Blog - Laurie Klein, Scribe

“Squirrel!” Or Harnessing Distraction

“Squirrel!” Like the talking dog in the movie “Up,” I’m distracted.

While reading, peripheral movements at the bird feeder have snagged my gaze. A small rodent poses atop the Squirrel Begone Baffle.

Book forgotten, I fetch my camera.

I am easily baffled. Prone to distraction:

hunger clears its throat when I mean to pray, then my feet escort me kitchen-ward
a traffic accident occurs and I rubberneck
during party conversations my ears mimic satellite dishes; I eavesdrop on other conversations

Some days my head locks onto the wrong setting: S.W.I.V.E.L.

Squirrel!

A tree squirrel can rotate both hind ankles 180 degrees, allowing breezy, head-first walks down a tree trunk. Or the quick-shinny up a metal pole.

To learn from this one—albeit after the fact—I launch an imaginary conversation: “Do you have a message for me?”

Then I give him a voice and let him answer. You seem less agile, he seems to say.

Didn’t see that coming. Cheeky rodent. “Um, are you perchance … packing a metaphor?”

The squirrel does a double-take. Who me?

“Yes, you.”

Claws re-grip the pole. Coast is clear.

“Meaning …”

Dare …

Standing fully extended,

the squirrel looks relaxed, yet

primed for action.

“Show-off,” I say.

I’m enacting my hunger.

I suspect he says this because in his furry mind, he suspects I am not.

So I change the subject

Whiskers, or vibrissae, surround the squirrel’s nose, mouth, and limbs. Vibrissae ferry nerve impulses brimming with tactile information straight to the brain.

Which restarts the dialogue. “Okay, Scamp, those whiskers suggest I pursue my current project with all my resources?”

The small head cocks, vibrissae quiver.

“Or … you’re implying a leap of faith will override my latest baffling obstacle: fear of finishing.”

Silence.

“I’ll discover balance in time for the next upward push?”

Nothing.

“Following my hungers, the God-given kind, might aid my mental agility?”

Tsk. Follow the ache; embrace the fun.

“I get it. Tend the small hungers within my reach. Then extend the reach.”

squirrel with seed — *Timing. Intention. Readiness. Grace.*

Distraction: harnessed via imaginary dialogue. If you try this, let me know what happens?

Dug, the talking dog, in “Up”—(watch here).

Double take post 1:

Double take post 2:

Making Waves

by Laurie Klein 6 Chiming In

Waves . . . oh how this world waves.

Breakers fling themselves at the shore
Beasts flick their ears to scatter flies
Gills ripple underwater
Land heaves and undulates

And we wave back

We wave to . . .
point out the marvelous: Look at that!

We wave to . . .
beckon guests: Come in, come in!
bid farewell: Come back soon!

hurry and harry our children: Mustn’t be late!

rally: You can do it!
flaunt: I did it!
be the whole parade: Look at me!

we wave to . . .
interrupt proceedings: Now hear this!
swing flares or flashlights: Accident ahead or Detour or Park here
wield placards: Travesty! Injustice!

furl and unfurl our flags: My country, right or wrong!
swing lanterns: One if by land, Two if by sea
brandish swords: Follow me!

We wave and it says I am here.

And sometimes, we waive our rights.

Or we make a stand, then waver.

Does it originate with the woman who waved Eden’s fruit?
Does it continue with one Palm Sunday colt (having the day of its life?)
and the One astride, born of starlight and Spirit,
sandaled feet brushing Jerusalem’s dust?

Wave, waive, waver

Fronds one day,
nails the next: two
callused palms
pierced by the wielded
mallet, our secret
names invisibly etched
beneath wounds

the crown still making waves — Hosanna in the highest!

What do you think about making waves?

Oh, and this might make you smile

Hope Deferred: Next Option, Please

by Laurie Klein 22 Chiming In

Hope deferred. Not what we had in mind.

Dreamer and I finally saw the cardiologist. For 3 long weeks we have awaited The Plan.

Remember the classic parental non-answer “We’ll see”?

Hopefully, 8 weeks hence, we’ll know more. A definitive word will be spoken.

Meanwhile: more meds.

A fellow wordsmith reminded me that poet Emily Dickinson eagerly awaited the enlivening glow of words, her eyes, ears and soul cocked, her pen poised.

Playwright William Luce says Dickinson relished words worth lifting a hat to. Like phosphorescence.

Hale
Vigorous
Robust

I long to lift my hat to one of those words.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, Solomon tell us.

Hope, however, also muscles up—via delay. Long after the disciples went home, Mary Magdalene hung around the tomb, waiting.

Waiting.

Who heard Easter’s enlivening word straight from the angels?

Who heard first, that day, from the Word, himself?

One who waited.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

What are you waiting for? May I come alongside you in prayer?

Sigh, Sigh, Sigh (& Stay Alive!)

by Laurie Klein 17 Chiming In

Sigh … audibly. Deeply. Frequently. (So says my fitness instructor)

Dreamer’s latest angiogram date looms. After 5 bypasses, why are we here again? Dismay feels substantive enough to mold—like river sludge between cupped palms.

Sigh. Empty the hands, lift them in trusting surrender.

An audible sigh re-inflates the vital, occasionally squashed alveoli within our lungs, keeping us alive.

So sigh some more.

A sigh alleviates stress. Research shows that 12 hourly sighs help us regroup, emotionally. Read more here.

Yes, bad news strikes, and fear makes us bristle, become thistle-y with those we love
Yes, sometimes even the air weighs on us, seemingly saturated with unshed tears
Yes, how easily we slide toward the sump of dread

Stalled out again,
going nowhere fast,
I remember “nowhere”
plus the addition
of one slender space
becomes “now here.”

Presence. One slender pause—a breath, a hum, a prayer—invites a sacred recalibration. The built-in reset for body and soul.

Inhale. Sigh aloud. Repeat.

“there is a changing of everything —
when breath becomes prayer.”*

Richard Rohr teaches a simple breath prayer. Using the name YAHWEH for God: inhale, audibly voicing the YAH; exhale, audibly voicing the WEH.

I also like Dr. Andrew’s Weil’s calming breath exercise:

Exhale as much air as possible with a big whoosh
Place tongue behind upper teeth, inhale for an easy count of 4
Hold breath for a count of 7
Exhale audibly for a count of 8

Do this four times. As it becomes easier, increase to eight repetitions, twice a day. Follow Dr. Weil in video clip, here.

I vary the 4-7-8 exercise by counting on my fingers, simultaneously humming or praying.

*Prayer, Ann Voskamp

Breaking In

by Laurie Klein 37 Chiming In

Breaking in sounds so … criminal.

Unless it’s light breaking in, or insight, or a penetrating sense of hope.

February 1973, public restroom, Hawaii:

Pre-Luau, six friends wash up. Judy sings Ju – bi – late Deo (rejoice in God). We all chime in. Great acoustics, a 15th-century round—we sound like a choir in a soaring cathedral.

Later the luau bandleader says, into the mic, “We heard heavenly music … coming from the ladies’ room.”

(laughter)

We slide down in our seats.

“Would those angels please join us onstage?”

(crowd, rubbernecking, applauds).

“Everyone should hear you,” he adds.

Before an international audience we sing and sing—in Latin. The long-dead language rising, rising.

We finish. A person could hear a lei petal drop.

“We sing. Things become fresh,” Walter Brueggermann writes.

“But then the moment breaks.”

In this half-broken world “a song’s always breaking in,” my friend Barb says.

Listen for it.

And sometimes, be one.

When have you heard the sound of hope breaking in? What happened?

For us there was no birth cry,
the newborn bird is suddenly here,
the egg broken, the nest alive,
and we heard nothing when the world changed.

—Lisel Mueller (excerpt), “What the Dog Perhaps Hears”

Hear “Jubilate Deo” here: 15th century round, or perpetual canon, written by Michael Praetorious.