Healing Broken Bones and a Hurting Nation — With Poetry

We had the election and Trump won. After a bitter political season and an outcome that was shocking for many, where do we go from here?

I don’t have the answers, but I have some ideas based on some moments from my life before and since the election.

Right now I’m dealing with a forced slowdown with a broken foot — all because of an acorn!

The weekend before the election, I taught at a Jewish women’s retreat in the San Bernardino Mountains outside LA. It was phenomenally nourishing and enriching, and I was on cloud nine. As I was preparing to leave on Sunday morning, I realized I had left my phone in my room, so I went back up two flights of outdoor stairs to get it. As I was coming back down, I stepped on an acorn and rolled my ankle over, landing on the outside of my right foot. I tumbled down a few stairs, and when I stood up, realized that I couldn’t put weight on my foot

I didn’t have a phone signal to call for help, so I had to hold the railing and carefully lower myself down the cement steps. Eventually I made it to the kitchen, where I asked for an ice bag. One of the participants, a pediatrician, put an ACE bandage on my foot, and friends helped me to my friend’s car for the ride back to San Diego

The next day my husband took me to the orthopedic surgeon’s office. They X-rayed my foot and found two fractures in my fifth metatarsal. They fit me with a boot. I’ve been putting ice on it and using a knee scooter and crutches since.

Ironically, I had picked up some acorns, leaves, and pine needles to use in my closing meditation on gratitude. Then an acorn took me down. I was so elated with how well the retreat had gone that it’s possible that I wasn’t mindfully watching where I was stepping. I wrote afterwards to the retreat participants:

My forced convalescence has given me lots of time to ponder.

I’m finding the majority of the people in my world are needing more support since the election because they weren’t on the winning team. The inspirational poets and spirituality authors that fill my Mindful Methods for Life Facebook page have been doing a gorgeous job trying to make people feel better, with poems like this one from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer:

So I can’t save the world—
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can’t
foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth,
about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.
One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I ask myself, What’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world
as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,
as if the world depends on it.

Another one of my favorite poets, James Crews, posted:

Today, I will look for the helpers — the woman pouring sunflower seeds from an orange bag into the feeder, and a chickadee, having eaten its fill, lifting off so another can feast there.
Someone holding open the fogged-over door of the coffee shop for a stranger who smiles and says thank you in spite of the news. I will watch workers dressed in neon vests with shovels and buckets, filling potholes across the city, the asphalt steaming as they spread it over the street, then tamp it down, repairing what they can.

These poets want to make other people feel like they are not alone, and that it’s going to be okay — or even if it’s not okay, we can be together and still try to do things to live our values. People like Kai Coggin, inaugural poet laureate of Hot Springs, Arkansas, who hosts Wednesday Night Poetry, writes:

Kai hosts the longest running consecutive weekly poetry open mic series in the country — since starting on Feb. 1, 1989, it’s never missed a week! The week after the election, Kai put out a call for poets to send in a video of themselves reading one poem. She put them together in a pop-up poetry night — comprising 50 poets! I answered that call and was happy to see myself in the middle of a pack of good people.

Another HUGE activity that is helping me is Julia Fehrenbacher’s poetry writing class! It’s a weekly messy “writing down the bones” type class, writing from prompts, keeping your pen moving until the timer says stop — sometimes 3 minutes, 7 minutes, or 10 minutes — feeling free to write your soul out with no edits. Sometimes, the raw material might be worked into a poem, sometimes not. The group has bonded into a supportive place of belonging — kind of how my Wednesday morning mindfulness meditation group has become a loving community after being together since the lockdown.

Here’s one of Julia’s poems:

Disbelief. Despair. Outrage.
It is the cat’s purr I lean toward this morning,
the way he gets right up close to my face,
nose to nose, nibbles
ever so gently—
as if coaxing me back to breath.
But it is not comfort I want this morning after,
it is permission to
rage—
to let the rage burn
burn burn some more. A roaring
inferno of rage.
And after it burns for as long as it needs to,
I will remember how
to breathe again—
and then my hand will reach
for yours, and from the ashes
we will
rise howl roar love our way bigger—
Undoubtedly. Guaranteed. Only for sure.

It’s comforting to see people sharing their work, baring their souls, because it lets us see how many truly good people there are in the world. I contrast that with so much of what I have seen on social media. This includes many people who like me voted for Kamala, but are filled with bitterness over the election outcome — not just against Trump, but against his supporters too.

I don’t think it should ever have gotten to the point where we demonize people who vote differently from us, because it’s really hard to walk that back. We may think people who voted differently from us don’t share our values, but maybe they do share some or even most of them.

Still, so many people are sad, hurting, and disappointed. I got a phone call a few days ago from my Uncle Bill and my Aunt Rifky. He’s my late father’s older brother and he had predicted Kamala would win by 10 points. He called and said: “I hear you’re wearing a boot” because my sister had told him I had broken my foot. So they called to see how I was doing. When I asked him how he was doing, he really went off: “How could this happen? Don’t these people have wives and daughters and granddaughters?” I said “Uncle Bill, can you stop for a minute? You’re 97 and I don’t want this upset to hurt your mind or your heart or your belly. You’re so outraged that it could harm you.”

He said, “No, no, no, no, no. Rifky and I, we’ve lived a long time; we’ve seen a lot. You don’t have to worry; we’re not gonna let this make us sick.” But I’m still worried about how upset he is.

If you are not on the winning team this election, how do you cope with your disappointment and grief?

The answers lie in the same things I always tell people: Take good care of yourself and know you’re not alone. Read things that are inspirational. Cuddle up with a book and a cup of tea. Take a walk in nature. See if you can help somebody. Surround yourself with community that wants to heal, not hate. Do what you can with what you’ve got, wherever you are to fill yourself back up so you will have the energy to navigate the challenges ahead with grace and wisdom, to be the guardian of the values that you hold dear.

I’ll leave you with this:

When near acorn trees
And teaching your teachables
Watch where you are going

When walking your walk
And teaching your teachables
Watch where you are going

Take good care. So much love,

P.S. I have an expansive poetry collection. I admit it might be an obsession! When I find a poet I like, I purchase their books! Someday I hope people will buy my poetry book too!

Here are the new titles from the poets I shared in this blog. Their back catalogue is also wonderful.

Julia Fehrenbacher’s new book “Staying in Love”

James Crews’ new book “Unlocking the Heart”

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s new book “The Unfolding”

Kai Coggin’s new book “Mother of Other Kingdoms”