As the Summer Closes: Fall Writing Circles and a New Poem

Dear Friends ~

I hope this message finds you well, breathing deeply, at ease in heart, mind, and belly, doing whatever it is that helps you find your wellness. God knows, we need our best faculties to negotiate these chaotic times. For my part, these summer weeks have been restorative, with ample time spent in or by some beautifully flowing familial waters. Wendy and I spent our usual three weeks in the Thousand Islands,Ontario–one week in June just for the two of us and two weeks in July with our sons, their beloveds, and some good friends of ours and theirs.  It is an enormous blessing to have continued access to the Galson family property known as Pumpkin Island. Year by year, we are grateful. Here’s a sunset view of the St. Lawrence River from the front dock of the island.

On a long weekend in August, we visited my younger brother and sister at the Jersey Shore. My parents relocated the family to Somers Point, New Jersey when I was twenty–this is where my little sister and brother spent most of their childhoods; it’s the area where they have settled as adults. After the age of seventeen I never lived with my family again, but with so many visits throughout my entire adult life, Somers Point  represents a kind of homecoming. The chaos and heartbreak in both of my younger siblings’ lives is real. The gentle, expansive  beauty of the waters there helps me hold their struggles, and my own, with compassion.

Somers Point

The place will hold you,
when you come to it, when you
cut your motor and settle your human keel
in a harbor that has long-time
waited. The waters can
calm you, cradle you even,
make all things possible
in a bay of fresh beginnings. Even
in your uncomfortable motel bed,
the blue will keep you
gently rocking.

Great Egg Harbor Bay they call it—
from a Dutch explorer of the 17th century
who found the beaches, the barrier island
and the mainland where you sit now,
by the swimming pool, sipping the morning’s coffee,
strewn with innumerable eggs of shorebirds
and waterfowl galore—mostly gone now
with the building, building, building,
but not all are gone. On the rooftop
laughing gulls exult and the husky crows
in their blackness boast of it—how
here they are and here will be
carrying on for all of us.

You send them a love poem
imagine they hear you
singing.
                                                     – Susan Windle

To all who welcome the New Year at this time, Shana Tova!
And to all, I wish you a year of “fresh beginnings.”

All love,

Susan