Author: joanvinallcox

Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. is a lifelong learner, retired communications professor, and rabid reader who has taught in both the college and university systems. Her Ph.D., in 2004 was an Autoethnographic Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry focused on moving from technophobia to technophilia. She is a widow from a pretty happy marriage and a mother to a strong and kind daughter. Her interests include Centering Prayer, Multiple Intelligences, Attention Deficit Disorder and its connection to creativity, Jung, Campbell’s Monomyth, and Arts-Based Narrative Inquiry.

Blessings, 2019

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Blessing
We live
In all our messy glory;
Trapped in time,
Suspended in place.

Waiting
For the next stage,
The next hope,
The answer that eludes us.

Hold out your hands.
Cup them together
To receive this grace:
You are already holy.


Another Blessing
Stand where you are,
Reach out your arms, 
Throw back your head,
Open your mouth.

Listen:
There is silence under.
Open your eyes:
Light bleeds into the dark.

Do not forget this moment.


The Third Blessing
There is no time solitary
Or gathered together
Where you are absent
Or alone.

Breathe,
Grasp,
Release,
Bow down.

Reach out,
Pull in,
Let go,
Rest.


Hashtag #spoileralert

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Hashtag: #spoileralert
– After reading poems by Emily Dickinson, and Tweets on Twitter

My future hides before me;
The ending pre-ordained.
The losses will continue
But bright joys may remain.

My feet will grow more tender;
My knees and hips more lame.
I may remember much;
I may forget my name.

The ending could be sudden,
Or agonies, – and slow. 
But life that waits before me
Holds time and love and hope.

Lost Password

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I’ve lost the password to what used to be my life.
The air is strange and I’m losing my sense of balance.
I search through remnants in the home I sold,
wondering what to keep, or sell, or trash.

I listen to the chatter of family discord:
recent losses, expected deaths, while mangled hopes
fall like tears, splashing on me,
where I sit, creating a new password.

The Waiting Room

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In Death’s waiting room, I watch
The receptionist checking files, and
I tell her it’s not me. I don’t
Have an appointment
Yet, I hope.

This one here beside me,
Who is looking away and
Doesn’t know it’s time,
Who doesn’t want to go
Into the next room.

It’s not me, I tell her,
Not me yet, I hope.

Caregiver

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“Take care of yourself” they said
But I didn’t know how
To be
That selfish.

“Like on a plane with a dependant” they said
“And the oxygen masks drop down,
Put yours on first;
That’s being responsible.”

Alone,
By the summer lake,
I feel the breeze.

Discordant Dance

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Discordant Dance

Before I knew I was unhappy
The questions were unanswered.

There was no crisis,
Just the ongoingness
Of dizzying agony.

Without the busyness of costumes,
I became curious:
What shaped these blows?
Why did I accept being thrown away
And jerked back?
Why these steps
In pain
Over and over and over?

How can I stop the dance?
Is it my choice?
Where was this dark dance
Choreographed? 

The mirror watched
As I twirled and twisted,
Watched impassively
Until, finally, a little light bled in.

I almost saw a question,
And twisted away.
I felt an answer trembling at my fingertips,
And closed my eyes.

I tripped, and caught myself
By staring at the mirror.
Again, 
And again.

The mirror saw what I felt:
The dance was shifting, gentling, stretching.

And the questions began shaping
The new choreography.