Intent on watering the garden this morning, I stumbled on a pair of mating possums and a second would-be suitor looking on from behind the chain link fence. This is not normal, these daylight shenanigans from a nocturnal species.
While mating is not desire, they both arrive as imperatives and who can account for the needs of the body? especially in springtime, with life pressing in from all sides, reminding us where we came from.
I remember that, being at the mercy of my surroundings, when a room was too far, and surely too expensive, and there was no choice, not even time for choice.
We would have stopped of course had we known we were being watched, that being the only real difference.
Writing came hard. A few hundred thousand years had to pass before modern man scratched a thought on a rock and broke free of himself.
No more pantomimes! No more guesswork! Now we had a tool, a proper way to tunnel out of darkness and locate others, not stopping until we had commas, italics, quotation marks, ellipses— an ever-growing stockpile to make ourselves clear, worthy of the brains we’d been given. They mattered, these tiny advancements, and in using them we became, incidentally, civilized.
I am beyond thrilled to announce the publication of my poetry collection A Day Like This. A printed edition of A Day Like This is now available through the Kelsay Bookstore or Amazon. For those who prefer an expedited (and more budget-friendly) version, the ebook will be ready in just a few days and I will make another announcement then. Ratings and comments, however brief, are deeply appreciated. https://tinyurl.com/27w32z27
“In the title poem of Jean Ryan’s luminous new collection, her speaker sees swallows slicing the air, observing, ‘Short dark arrows, they never miss, their flight too swift for error.’ I can’t think of a more apt description for A Day Like This, in which poem after poem so vivdly penetrates to the core of lived experience. Ryan’s poems have an ease of movement and transparency of structure I find most enviable. She has a special gift for finding what remains fresh and particular inside the ancient stuff of poetry. This is a gorgeous book, powerful and assured, written by a poet who is elegant, concise, honest, and warmhearted in her approach. I can’t recommend it enough. A quietly masterful work.” Erin Belieu, author of Slant Six, Black Box, Come-Hither Honeycomb, and One Above and One Below.
Thought it was time I posted more of my acrylic paintings. I still do many pet portrait commissions and look forward to the surprise and happiness they bring.
Grief, it has been said, is just love with no place to go. But what if it were not lost, useless, what if that surge, that sudden detonation, is just love doing the best it can to keep them close?
For book recommendations, all you need do is head to Shepherd.com. There you will find lists of book favorites (read in 2023) from participating authors, as well as listings of all around favorite books in a searchable database. What are you interested in reading about? Ben Shepherd has you covered.
For a list of my favorites books read 2023, here is my post. Enjoy!
It’s not only that they leave us too soon, it’s that they leave us alone with our imperfect selves. We will never have their grace, their capacity for forgiveness. We will never be as good at being alive.
The last time I cried was a year ago, when I was informed of the passing of a woman I cherished. Death, it seems, is the bar for my tears. Sad movies, stranded polar bears, the plight of children in war torn countries—nothing else brings me to that threshold. Sometimes I try to coax the tears; the closest I get is a slight pull in my throat. I assume that I still can weep, but someone must die to prove it.
At first I thought it could be a side effect of Paxil, which I take for anxiety. I asked others who take this drug and they all said no, they can cry just fine. Given this testimony, the low dosage I require, and the fact that I started on Paxil years before my tears dried up, I doubt my problem is drug-related. In any case, it doesn’t matter: no way am I going back to living with my default mode stuck on panic.
So what did happen to me? It is not uncommon for people to become more jaded as they get older, and I am in fact “older.” Did I glimpse one too many photos of oil-covered seagulls? Have I hardened off in the past few years, turned numb to sadness and madness? I do not feel numb. You know those videos on social media where a dog is drowning, or a baby elephant can’t pull itself out of the mud? Even aware these clips end well, I cannot bear to watch them. And then there’s the minefield of current events. Each morning I open my iPad and tiptoe through the news, avoiding the climate section entirely.
Maybe my body is protecting me, operating on a level beyond my understanding, the way traumatic memories sink into the abyss of subconsciousness. In stemming my tears, my body could simply be trying to survive a little longer by withholding emotions that might undo me. But if this is so, why do I still feel despair and sorrow, and what about the reputed benefits of a good cry, how it detoxifies the body, clears the chakras?
On the scale of human afflictions, not being able to cry wouldn’t even move the needle, and really, is it a problem? Not being able to laugh—now that would be unfortunate. Humor is a stronghold, maybe our last.
Still, this dry-eyed life makes me feel lonely sometimes, and self-conscious, as if I am missing a measure of humanity. Watching some heartbreaking movie, I’ll look over at my wife and see tears streaming down her face as the closing music swells, and something close to jealousy climbs up my chest. She is experiencing something, fully, and I am shut out.
The internet probably clamors with people like me. There must be chat rooms, support groups, therapists who specialize in this disorder, if it can be called that. I wonder how listless I’d have to become to seek such support. My life would have to shrink to the size of an atom. There could be no plants to feed, no backyard birds to watch, no meals to plan, no partner to laugh with, no cat to cuddle, no coffee on the patio, no luck to ponder.
With all this—more than I ever hoped for—maybe there’s just no room left for tears.
Jean Ryan 