A retreat in the mountains,
under giant redwoods
with women songs,
songbird-songs,
beautiful food,
and a tiredness,
a need to write
that made me abandon
the last singing session
for a journal,
pushing pen to paper.
What I feel is an old map.
I have been trying
to navigate my life
using an outdated map.
Going to the same places
I have always gone
for meaning, joy and
satisfaction…
but my meaning, joy and
satisfaction don’t live
there anymore.
Where has choir gone?
I keep looking for the music,
the camaraderie, the exhilaration
of choir life as it once was,
but when I get there
the experience is empty,
doesn’t sing to me anymore,
and I wonder what’s wrong,
keep wandering around,
searching the bushes
for what is no longer there.
On the outdated map,
some of the lively, lovely,
creative, essential places
where I once lived,
are now “exclusion zones,”
contaminated,
like the dead zones
around Chernobyl.
Motherhood,
one used to be called.
But where I lived full-time
at 23 or 33, even 43
is a forbidden zone now,
boarded up for the good of all,
to avoid trapdoors and pitfalls,
posted with yellow caution tape
and skull-and-crossbones signs.
If I’m stuck in the old map,
I don’t notice the warnings
and blunder my way into
disastrous, post-dated mothering.
Over the years,
the terrain and landmarks
have been changed and
rearranged all over my world.
Where I once went,
how I once lived,
is misinformation now.
Where in the world is
the screen of my internal GPS
showing up-to-date feedback
on this thing called actual reality?
What is the lay of the land now
…for loving my beloveds,
…for a life of real well-being,
…for the work I do,
…for what of myself I can give to others,
…for living a life alive in the Sacred?
GPS is what is required now.
Everything I need to know
will be fresh and refreshed
if I remember to check in
with my GPS…
the present moment.
Ann Keiffer
July, 2019
