Resilience

Hans Christian Andersen said, “Where words fail, music speaks.” I love words. I’ve loved and treasured them since I was young. But sometimes they simply cannot speak or convey true depth of emotion the way music can and does. A song that has spoken to me, that I’ve been listening to over and over again, is Resilience by Audiomachine, on their album Rise. Resilience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnxZDiHYHzE

There’s this trendy thing that’s been around for years now where you pick out a word, and that’s your word for the year. I’ve never done it because—well, because it’s trendy, and I hate trends. Ask my kids and they’ll tell you one of my favorite things to say is, “I’m not a sheep.” Meaning, I’m not going to follow all the other sheep walking off the cliff. But this word is powerful to me right now—just like the song. Resilience. “The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Life is hard. I’m trying to withstand and recover, to be resilient.

But I don’t think it’s just about surviving. It’s about thriving through the trials and difficulties. There are times in my life I have merely survived. This time, despite being the most difficult thing I’ve ever gone through, I want to do more than survive. I want to find joy. I already have. I want to continue being grateful for the blessings, even when another bomb explodes. I can find gems even in the rubble. I am resilient. I will have resilience. The song by Audiomachine conveys so perfectly what I have felt about this word and everything it means. The music speaks when the words fail. Resilience. Not just my word for this year, but for my life. Resilience.

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Sharing Some More Poetry

Sometimes life is hard. In those hard moments writing, especially poetry, helps me. It has always been therapy for me as well as a creative outlet. Words are my soul. Words make up so much of who I am. Even though the things I may have felt in moments, days or weeks of depression, despair, frustration, hopelessness, etc. fade the words still mean something to me. And maybe they will mean something to someone else as well. That is one of the reasons I love poetry so much. It can touch someone through time and distance in so many different ways. Here are a couple of poems that may not be how I feel now, but are how I felt at some point and may be how someone else has felt or is feeling.

Honeysuckle Poison
by Tacy Gibbons

Scent of honeysuckle.
Nostalgia hits.

I can see the fence where its white flowers grew.
Smells of heaven and childhood.
Picking blossoms and sucking the sweet nectar down.

Memories now poisoned with the knowledge of your lies,
the truth of what you really were
polluting the sweetness like poison.

Reaching through time and memories,
choking on the bitter reality,
the past now tainted by your toxicity.

Yet, I rise up through the fallen petals,
let the poison fade.
The wave of nostalgia washes over and retreats.

And I am left only with the sweet scent
of honeysuckle.

A Day In the Life
by Tacy Gibbons

I am the captured tiger,
beaten into submission,
thrown into a cage.
My master holds the only key.

Head hanging, shoulders hunched,
sad eyes look longingly for the dream I used to live.
Master asks me to lift my head,
swish my tail and purr.
He needs life to feel normal again.

I sit in patience, surrounded by bars,
lift my head, swish my tail and purr,
hoping to please, hoping for companionship.
Master walks by, smiles and pats my head . . . 
then wanders off,
leaving me to my cage and defeat.

I am the captured tiger,
beaten into submission,
thrown into a cage.
My master holds the only key.

And I wonder—
if he ever lets me out, will I want to go?
Or will the caged life be all I remember?
All I want to know?

Or maybe—will I run?
Run to freedom and never look back.