A friend conducted what he called Market Research for me.  He took the time to learn what people liked about my podcast, and he suggested I should emphasize those elements when I promote my show.  He’s probably right.  As it turns out, however, I’m no sort of promoter.  I’m not sure I could sell tickets to The Second Coming of Christ.  It’s just not in me to promote effectively.

He also suggested I would be more successful if I did more interviews, even if they were with people who are not celebrities.  That’s also just not in me.  I recognize, however, that I’m not the only good writer I know.  This week, I’m going to introduce you to my friend, Shoshana Edwards.  I’m not going to interview her because I really don’t do interviews well.  Barbara Walters, may she rest in peace, I’m not.  Interviewing people is an entirely different skill set.  I respect people who do it well.  I’m simply not one of them.

Instead of interviewing Shoshana, I’m going to share her writing with you.  Yes, she gave me permission.  I don’t plagiarize, although I steal quotations ruthlessly.

I’m going to share with you three pieces of her prose and one of her poems.  She has much more than you will hear on this show.  I narrated her book, “Deathly Waters,” which is one of her three novels about Harper’s Landing.  It’s a little hole in the wall town with a supernatural element to it.  I’ll put the Amazon link to her books in the Show Notes.  She also has a Patreon page where she shares some of her best work.  I’ll put a link to that in the Show Notes, too, and I encourage you to join that page to see more of her work.

One of the things Shoshana does several times a week is introduce to a friend of hers.  I’m going to use my favorite of her introductions to introduce you to her:

***

In thinking about who I wanted to recognize today, I came to the realization that ALL of you matter, every single one of you.  You make a difference in my life, every single day.  Whether I call you or you call me; or I read something you wrote. If I see a picture you post, or read of your loss, your pain, your frustration.

You are unique, and yet we are all alike.  What a strange and magical dissonance that is.  You are tall, I am short.  She is large, he is skinny.  They are Black, he is brown.  You run races; I can’t walk.  So different, so unique.  Yet…

We all hurt when something pokes or burns us, or we trip and fall.  We all love for various reasons, and we all feel anger.  Psychologists can list emotions, and each and every one of us can remember, if we are willing, a time when we felt those emotions. Philosophers can speak of great ambitions and impeccable logic, and all of us will understand if the words are carefully chosen and the meaning is presented clearly and simply.

We all get cold, hot, sweaty, sick, aroused, hungry; and we all satisfy those longings and needs in unique and different ways.  Yet we all wear clothing (at least some of the time), sleep, eat, make love (to others or ourselves).

We are stardust.  We are unique.  And we are the commonality that makes up the human race.  And YOU, you are rare and beautiful and wonderful and amazing and gifted and lovely and worthy of everything magical and marvelous that comes your way.  You inspire me.  You make me want to climb up out of my hole of despair, out of my bed of pain, away from the mire of depression, and write to you of stories, of people who have overcome, people who have loved.  Because that is who you are.

Thank you.  My life would be empty and without hope if it were not for YOU.  YOU make me strive to be better.  YOU inspire me.  You are my hope and longing and mentor and audience.  I love you.  All of you.

Who inspires you?  Have you told them today?  Have you introduced them to the world?

***

Next, Shoshana writes of an emotion we have all felt, some of us more frequently than others.  Instead of explaining it, I’ll let her tell you.

***

I want to talk to you about grief.  So many of us are going through losses of various kinds.  Grief isn’t just about losing someone you love.  It is also about losing your physical strength, your livelihood, a cherished friendship, or a beloved pet.  And we (meaning Americans because we seem peculiarly trained for this) are taught to “control” our grief.  Some of us have even been taught to hide it.  And that is literally killing us.

I have buried four children, six grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and two husbands.  I lost my breasts to cancer.  My liver is damaged because of HepC (now cured, thank goodness).  Because of a serious accident in college that broke my back among other things, I now suffer severe and debilitating arthritis.  And I wish I could tell you I handled all this loss with grace.  I didn’t.

No, I told myself to be strong.  I braved it through.  I cried and still do sometimes, but did it privately. And when tears appeared either in public or with a family member or friend, I apologized and pulled myself together.  The energy I could have spent on healing myself was instead squandered on pretending to be someone I wasn’t.

So now I am falling apart.  And I’m letting myself fall apart.  Because I have to.  I need help in putting myself back together again, in a stronger version of me.  All that grief has been festering, causing anxiety and depression and failure and need and a raft of other things that have kept me from being the best me possible.

So I’m falling apart. It’s rather like taking a lovely, old dress and carefully taking out all the seams.  Then you can look for tears that need repairing, holes that can be patched, and you put the dress back together again.  And it’s lovely and beloved and stronger than before.  That’s what I’m doing.  And you, my dear dear friends, are helping, whether you know it or not.

Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for being there even when it is difficult.  Picking out those old, failing stitches is hard work, and sometimes it seems impossible.  Repairing the holes is tedious, painstaking work, and sometimes you just want to throw the whole damn thing in the basket and forget about it.  You keep me going.  Thank you.  I love you all.

If you are holding in grief, let it out.  Howl at the moon.  Call a friend; Join a support group.  Paint, write, carve — create something from those feelings.  Let them happen.  It’s rather like an emotional abcess, messy as hell to be drained and cleaned, but necessary because the damn things spread.

And just as you have been there for me, I will be there for you.

I love you.

***

Shoshana possesses a skill I lack, and I envy her for it.  She is a poet.  Those who know the least about writing claim poetry is the easiest kind of writing.  6^th graders love it because it is short.  Those of us who actually know something about it recognize that real poetry (as opposed to what most 6^th graders write, or anything you’re likely to read in a Hallmark card) is the most difficult and demanding writing one can do.  It’s not just that every word matters, it’s that the sound of every word is vital.  You have a very short space to create the most powerful catharsis you can.  T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost can do it.  Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning can do it.  And Shoshana Edwards can do it, too. 

***

SOMEWHERE

Somewhere a baby is crying its first cry, pulling in its first breath,

Unfamiliar feelings torture its soul, until someone wraps it tight,

Swaddled in blankets, warm; and held next to a beating heart,

A familiar sound and all seems well.

Somewhere a grandmother breathes her last breath,

Eyes fixed upon the man she has loved for countless hours and days and years.

Surrounded by children and grandchildren, hands comforting her

As she breathes goodbye to love and wonder and pain.

Somewhere a couple, joined together in love and trust

Has their first orgasm together, first one, crying out in joy and anguish and pleasure

As the other thrusts again and again, joining in that overwhelming burst

Of organic bliss and pain and taste of heaven.

Somewhere, everywhere

Life begins and ends and ebbs and swells

And all that ever was and ever will be

Is wrapped up in one eternal, glorious gift.

Awake, my people.  Lift your eyes to the heavens.

The sun has risen, the moon is full, the sky lightens, the stars shine bright.

This magic ball on which we walk and crawl and run and love and kill

Demands that we be grateful, else we lose it all.

Somewhere, new life begins.

A new earth is born, even as another dies.

We are not forever; we are only here for a while.

Be still, my children, and hear the pulse of creation.

We are the universe, born in a burst of stars

Whirling out into space, gathering planets as they fly

And when the circling starts, the gyre and gimble controlled,

The seas and land make known their presence.

And out of the sea comes life.

Somewhere.

Everywhere different.

Is there love wherever life begins?

Is this thing called love a human construct

Or an eternal truth found wherever life begins?

What joy that we have minds that ask such questions,

Contemplate such wonder.

Somewhere…

***

This is Fred’s Front Porch Podcast, where I like to leave you with hope, which, as someone tells me, is the thing with feathers.  This time, I’ll leave you with Joy, by Shoshana Edwards.

***

JOY

He told me to write about joy.  What is joy?  Is it dancing in the wet grass early in the morning, just before the sun comes up?  Is it the first crocus?  The jonquil between the cracks on the sidewalk?  Or perhaps the moon after weeks of clouds and rain and snow.

But those things, joyous as they are, do not reside in the depths of my soul.  They are happy memories to be pulled out on rainy days and displayed for the mind’s entertainment when nothing seems alive outside.  Everything is sleeping, waiting for spring to creep in and tickle them into bloom.

I do not go to my soul.  I let it lie, hidden under mental quilts, protected, and comforted and bundled against discovery.  My soul is a library of memories; stacks to wander when I am brave, confronting the rage leaping out of the journals and diaries and secret puzzle boxes stored away on dusty shelves.

Joy stays outside, leaning against the door jamb, beckoning me away from the dark corridors of pain, urging me back into the sunlight and promise of a better day.  But my venture into the soul repository brings back with it a small piece of bitter sorrow, a remembrance of a childhood party destroyed, an achievement belittled, and friendship that never existed.  And I spend my time tucking it back into a new volume, time when I could be romping with joy in a room full of chocolates and tea and friends.

Does joy allow for tears?  What are tears of joy to me, when tears are the only possible release from memories of a life shackled by mental illness and pain?  What is happiness to a mind rejected because of its monstrous difference from normal?  Where does joy fit in a life full of rejection and doubt and disability?

He told me to write about joy.  I weep for the child who knew no joy, for the mother who lost her children before joy could make them walk and talk and laugh and smile, for the wife who endured humiliation and pain, for the woman who offered friendship and received rejection.

I cannot write of joy.  Except I can when I look at a newborn kitten or a bursting bud filled with rosy promise of scent and color.  I can when the night is clear and the moon seems close enough to touch; when the rain patters on the patio roof outside my window; when the music is so painfully beautiful that you can swim on the rising swell of the violins, slide down the soft English horn descant, and dance to the trumpet staccato.  There is no joy within me, but I find joy outside and invite it into the parlor for tea cakes and conversation.  It leaves, but for those few moments, there is joy.

Order Shoshana’s books here:

https://www.amazon.com/Deathly-Waters-Harpers-Landing-America/dp/1952825202/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ZR7T2P6NG94G&keywords=deathly+waters&qid=1674862811&sprefix=%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-1

Find her on Patreon here:

https://www.patreon.com/ShoshanaEdwards/posts