She Thanked Her Sorrow

 The title of this post is from a poem by Terri St.Cloud called Driving Home.  It’s part of a collection of her poems in a book called “Over Tea“.   I received this jewel in the mail the other day, a thoughtful gift from my dear friend, Sorrow,  who by the grace of friendship must have sensed that  I needed a picker-upper. 

So I have this wondrous book that I keep very close at hand, like my own private cheering section, with its poetry of comfort and reassurance.    I’m not sure if Terri’s full intent was to put into words what so many of us are lacking in courage to say to ourselves, let alone to others, but she does so with great sensitivity.  Even her name,  Terri St.Cloud,  evokes a soft blue, fluffy bathrobe that envelops you in assurance and caring.

Some poems are a dozen lines or more, some are just one powerful sentence, but each is set on its own page, a small island of solace in an expanse of creamy hushed paper.    I’m refraining from the urge of getting my kids’ colouring pencils out and drawing in the emotions I feel in the space around those poems.   I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold out!    I’ve read it cover to cover, and now I return to it often, reading at random Terri’s thoughts on friendship and on discovering the beauty of the other.  

You know, beauty is often something we overlook, especially in this world where our focus is pulled in so many different (and un-beautiful) directions.  We think we know what makes up a beautiful person, a beautiful character, a beautiful mind.   But letting the media, or anyone else for that matter, dictate to you what is and is not beautiful, is a path of soul destruction.   Be careful, though, it’s not by closing up or censoring that beauty emerges.   Opening my mind has been a way for me to see that in fact, it’s the “not beautiful” that truly is.   If you see the beauty in others but not in yourself, does that count?  Does seeing the beauty in others make you beautiful?   If who or what you see makes you feel beautiful just by being in its presence or just by looking at it, isn’t that true beauty?  Isn’t being moved by someone’s spirit or the light in their eyes, or soaking up the four thousand shades of green that you see at this time of the year, isn’t that the kind of beauty that transforms a person?   Doesn’t  beauty, and recognition of it,  sometimes come from pain and sorrow?   Terri’s poetry is about discovering that beauty in yourself and in others. 

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I thank my Sorrow, tuck it away, and continue my drive Home.

Love,

Chantal  xoxoxoxo