DEBRA ELISA WÖHRMANN, Author at L. I. T.

August 17, 2014August 17, 2014

Glenna Cook: Gentle Voice Telling Her Truth

“Finding beauty in a broken world may be creating beauty in the world we find.”

Terry Tempest Williams

IMG_20140720_083529 — Poet, Glenna Cook, visiting us in Portland

Almost twenty years ago, I met Glenna Cook in a poetry workshop. Six of us gathered round a dining room table in Tacoma, Washington. We talked and wrote, wrote and shared. Glenna was twice my age–literally–and back then it seemed a lot of years–a huge gap.

To my younger self, our life-experiences and concerns seemed unalike. Nonetheless, outside of our poetry workshop, we met up at the local Borders Bookstore, swapped a poem or two and traded stories. We witnessed each other’s writing struggles and stubbornness, and once went to the Skagit Poetry Festival together and shared a room at a motel in Mt. Vernon. When I moved two hours south for a full-time teaching gig, we stayed in touch.

Those thirty years between us don’t seem to matter much anymore: The truth is, I appreciate Glenna now more than ever. A lot’s happened since I was 30, in that poetry workshop writing some of my first poems: Loss and gain, birth and death, anniversaries and marriages–sharing stanzas by email most of the time.

Our friendship is a gift which gives me a glimpse into life from a woman who’s lived a few decades longer Continue reading “Glenna Cook: Gentle Voice Telling Her Truth”

July 20, 2014July 21, 2014

Room for Rent: “One of the Best Way to Grieve I’ve Ever Heard of”

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,

and the life of the candle will not be shortened.

Happiness never decreases by being shared”

The Buddha

When I walked into Linda Fitzgera IMG_20140616_143553 ld’s home, the words “I’m Happy” reached out from where they sat perched on the mantel. As she showed me around I kept looking to these words, wondering about the block of wood.

I met this dynamic 73 year old water-color artist while waiting for the MAX–the light rail here in Portland. I had struggled to buy my ticket, the machine refusing my credit card. She whipped out her smart phone.

“I like to buy mine online. It’s so much simpler,” she smiled. “You never know when the machine might not cooperate.”

We soon realized we were both headed downtown, both going to City Hall to testify as Airbnb hosts. The city is in the midst of creating new laws to guide the sharing economy. I told her about our 1907 Four-Square and the studio we rent out to travelers, and she told me about the room with a bath in her North Portland home.

“It might sound funny, but this is the best way I’ve ever heard of to grieve,” she said. “It really is. It gave me other people to serve and talk to when I lost my husband.”

Vince Fitzgerald died last September, leaving a void in Linda’s life and a lot of empty space in her home. She heard about Airbnb and realized it would be a good way to use her space and earn some income.

IMG_20140616_161412 “I’m happy,” were some of his last words, she told me. Her story made me smile as my eyes stung. She described his last days, the family standing around his bed, and him assuring them, “I’m happy.”

Her husband had lived more than 18 year with Parkinson’s–diagnosed only a year after their marriage. The final three weren’t easy, but he kept his humor–and his appreciation. Earlier in his life, Vince Fitzgerald had been a Franciscan priest, had then married and fathered children, and after being windowed had found Linda. (They had met many years previous, but now they met again!)

“At first I thought he was too boring, Continue reading “Room for Rent: “One of the Best Way to Grieve I’ve Ever Heard of””

July 3, 2014

Crayfish in Timothy Lake & “The Peace of Wild Things”

“If the only prayer you ever said in your whole life was ‘Thank you,’
that would suffice.”

-Meister Eckhart (1260-1328)

One way to love the urban life yet stay refreshed is to get into the woods, especially the nearby Cascades. We hadn’t done it in way too long. And though we’re self-employed and rather flexible –you would think–we sketched in a couple of days at the end of June to “get away”.

Go we did! We packed the car, arranged for Cam, our neighbor, to visit our cat and water plants in the greenhouse. We left on Sunday by noon and wove our way out of Portland–which took almost an hour! Our timing must’ve been perfect because once we found Timothy Lake and began our campsite-search, the pickings seemed beyond good luck.

Site #31 at Gone Creek Campground was a walk-in–and on a tip of the lake: Hemlock and Vine Maple provided natural border on either side, and a drive-in loop gave us some distance from the road so we hardly noticed passersby. Continue reading “Crayfish in Timothy Lake & “The Peace of Wild Things””

June 22, 2014June 24, 2014

Happiness & the Rat: More Similar Than We Might Think

There are two ways to live your life: one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.

– Albert Einstein

This week takes me back to the rat, the brain that dictates all we do, and the choices we make along our road toward happiness or wherever we’re headed.

You might remember the super-MOOC [massive open online course] Understanding the Brain: The Neurology of Everyday Life I signed up for back in April: Dr. Peggy Mason, professor of neuroscience at the University of Chicago, teaches this 10-week course.

After a 25-year focus on the cellular mechanisms of pain modulation (how does morphine work?), she now focuses on the biological basis of empathy. Some current research looks at “empathy in rats.” Watch this short video to see one of her experiments!

In her findings, it appears that a rat will choose to free another rat from captivity before choosing to eat a yummy treat. In other words, the rat empathizes with his comrade and helps relieve this other rat’s seeming misery before feeding himself chocolate and butterscotch.

Often, we humans think we’re quite different from others life, Continue reading “Happiness & the Rat: More Similar Than We Might Think”

June 15, 2014October 9, 2014

Here’s to Jack Gilbert–Who Could Have Been Famous

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Last week, Peg brought Jack Gilbert’s poem “A Brief for the Defense” to our early-morning poetry circle.

Sun Magazine published this poem along with a short biography and their regret that they hadn’t known of Gilbert’s work until reading about his death in The New York Times. Jack Gilbert, 1925-2012, lived “mostly off the poetry grid,” the article said.

He rose to the top in the poetry world and then chose to step away, travel and feel his way through the world. He chose to study living rather than study academically–or be studied. In 1962, at age 37, he won the Yale Younger Poet’s Prize but six months later bowed away from public view. Over the years he gave few readings and taught only off and on at universities–both in the USA and in Europe–to earn a living.

I hadn’t realized just how lucky we were when he visited our little college in the early 2000s. Continue reading “Here’s to Jack Gilbert–Who Could Have Been Famous”

June 8, 2014December 14, 2017

Lives That Touch Our Own: Karen Turner–More than English Professor

“Nobody sees a flower–really–it is so small–we haven’t time–and to see takes time like to have a friend takes time.”
Georgia O’Keefe, American Artist

Many of you, I imagine, have had this same experience: A friend, teacher, pastor, rabbi, astrologist, lover, sister, doctor, neighbor–someone in life–is like a fixture. We take them for granted. We don’t realize how important they are or how we’ve depended on them until it’s too late.

Not to sound dramatic, but you probably know what I mean. It’s human–waking up a bit too late. For me, it wasn’t losing my mother that left me reeling in the way of “I never realized how important she was.” I had regrets, but I knew Mom was important in my life. Her diagnosis spun me into a panic and regret, but I would have some time near the end of her life to say goodbye, make some peace, and let her know how I appreciated her. I tried–as difficult and awkward as I was.

When she died, I was just 31 and hugely sad. The loss called me to attention in a way nothing had. I wanted to make her proud. I wanted to live a life that would show my mother’s efforts and all she gave of herself to me was worthwhile.

A couple of years later, I traveled to India Continue reading “Lives That Touch Our Own: Karen Turner–More than English Professor”