Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine: Poems of Grace, Hope, and Healing

By Margaret Dubay Mikus

These selections from my poetic journal, small slices of a complex life, share an ultimately hopeful story. Various threads are woven over time into a narrative arc: ongoing medical events, my longtime deep connection to my husband, the closeness of our family of four, and celebrating my relationship with my mother through poems inspired by our Monday phone calls. I grieved her loss and also that of my youngest brother, my father-in-law and mother-in-law, and many other close family members and friends in five-year period. My youngest sister, Dorothy, was diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 breast cancer. The disappearance of a friend of my daughter (a girl who used to sit at my kitchen counter) profoundly affected me as a mother (“For Kelly’s Mom” and “Vanished”). I selectively read the news and wrote about it. The “Walking Series” poems are peaceful meditations of being present in nature. Many people inspired me, many people helped me. I am most grateful. When I was pulled into the medical realm, the poems more narrowly focused on that world. As I emerged from an intensive healing period, the poems became more wide-ranging again.

Even in the hardest times, not every minute is relentless conscious healing work. Sometimes you need a vacation from grief, a respite in nature, a good laugh, a nap, a walk, a book, singing, a silly movie, talking with a friend about anything else, some sliver of perspective. You want to feel normal, to remember that there is life apart from all the dark, a life you can slowly move towards—in zigs and zags—as the days go on.

Change is possible. Healing is possible. It is possible to heal our whole selves, to heal relationships, to heal our severed connection to our life purpose, and to heal trauma, whatever the cause. We can heal our past and set a new course for ourselves free from old ingrained injuries. If one person heals, healing energy radiates out from them with the possibility of healing their families and communities. We all benefit as it spills over to all of us.

So take this lifeboat with me through possibly rough seas and calm, into the streaming light on the far shore. Let me tell you a story...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Margaret Dubay Mikus
• Release date: Oct 13, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310639234

Margaret Dubay Mikus

Margaret Dubay Mikus is a poet, singer, healer, photographer, and storyteller. She earned a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Chicago in 1982, headed for a promising career in molecular genetics research and teaching. Life had other plans. After healing from multiple sclerosis in 1995, she had a creative reawakening which led her to begin a poetic journal to “sing from the Heart.” A year later she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Writing turned out to be an essential part of Margaret’s integrative approach to healing. Later, she used her poems as writing prompts when teaching her "Expanding Our Possibilities" (TM) workshop series. Her poems, photos and essays have been published in literary journals, magazines, newsletters, and anthologies, both online and in print. She was honored to be the Illinois Featured Author for the "Willow Review" in 2013. Her acclaimed poetry collections and inspiring CD have supported many people in making positive life changes. Margaret met Stephen Mikus in an English class when they were at the University of Michigan. They have been married since 1974 and have two grown children. More about her work and her uplifting story can be found on her website, www.FullBlooming.com. Check out the 67 poem-videos and essays with other poems on her blog.

Book preview

Introduction

May these poems and photographs be a lifeboat through hard times for you or someone you know. Perhaps this book will give comfort, healing, and hopefulness. Although this is a very personal story, aspects might seem familiar to you, might give voice to something in your life, express something you want to say, or be a way to help someone you care about. I should tell you right off it has a very happy ending as I came through what seemed like a long black tunnel, the only way out, is through….

For this collection I selected poems from 2009 through April of 2014. This was a particularly rough patch with losses piling on and additional serious medical problems, (interspersed with walks, people, music, reflection, and calm insights). The poems are a record of that time, a way to process, assess, and remember, both at the time and later. Originally I wanted to tell the story of two surgeries (in 2010 and 2013), how the second surgery helped to heal trauma from the previous one. I then added some poems to give context and flesh out the story. The book kept evolving, getting bigger for a while, some poems in, some poems out, until it coalesced over time into this volume.

Although I think of myself as a strong and vigorous person, my whole life I’ve struggled with various health issues. In 1995 I healed from multiple sclerosis, setting out on a new life course. My creativity was cracked open and I began a poetic journal to sing from the heart. Within a year, a diagnosis of breast cancer threw me into a whirlwind of emotions and medical treatment decisions. With help, I integrated holistic and conventional therapies and healed from cancer. Those insights led to my first book, As Easy as Breathing: Reclaiming Power for Healing and Transformation—Poems, Letters and Inner Listening. Writing continues to be essential to me for a healthy and meaningful life.

Three broad take-home messages of this book are: 1) Healing, insight, and growth can take place all the time, on the most ordinary days. Poems like Put Down the Sword of Self-Wounding, Remodeling as a Transformative Device, Melting, and Convert the Pain speak to transformation as a process that transcends painful experiences. It may not be about going off on retreat, away from the complexity of life, but in persisting day to day through even the messiest crazy times. Slowly you might become aware of what needs healing, begin to ask for help and to receive it, learn new skills, and remember what you already know about taking good care of yourself. 2) Healing is possible even after waves of grief or illness or other traumas keep knocking you down until you can no longer remember anything but darkness. Crucial ingredients for me were grace, persistence, trust, patience, inner guidance, putting one foot in front of the other day after day, writing, music, being in nature, drawing support to me, remembering to breathe, practicing radical self-care and self-kindness. 3) It is possible to heal by re-writing the old story, not to change what happened in the wounded past, but to change the conclusion. Poems tell of a major surgery gone wrong in 2010 and then another surgery in 2013 that was healing in every way possible. The first surgery was traumatic to remember and so I wrote very little, and the second I wanted to recall every detail. By re-writing the old story, the surgery in 2013 led to a restoration of hope and trust, and profound healing of body, mind, emotion, and spirit.

Change is possible. Healing is possible. It is possible to heal our whole selves, to heal relationships, to heal our severed connection to our life purpose, and to heal trauma, whatever the cause. We can heal our past and set a new course for ourselves free from old ingrained injuries. If one person heals, healing energy radiates out from them with the possibility of healing their families and communities. We all benefit as it spills over to all of us.

These small slices of life from my poetic journal share a hopeful story. Various threads are woven over time into a narrative arc: ongoing medical events, my longtime deep connection to my husband, the closeness of our family of four, celebrating my relationship with my mother through poems inspired by our Monday phone calls, then grieving her loss and also the loss of my youngest brother, my father-in-law and mother-in-law, and other close family members and friends (see Timeline). My youngest sister, Dorothy, was diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 breast cancer. The disappearance of a friend of my daughter (a girl who used to sit on a stool at our kitchen counter) profoundly affected me as a mother (For Kelly’s Mom and Vanished). I selectively read and responded to the news. The Walking Series poems are peaceful meditations of being present in nature. Many people inspired me, many people helped me. I am truly grateful. When I was pulled more into the medical realm, the poems more narrowly focused on that world. As I emerged from an intensive healing period, the poems became more wide-ranging again.

Even in the hardest times, not every minute is relentless conscious healing work. Sometimes you need a vacation from grief, a respite in nature, a good laugh, a nap, a walk, a book, singing, a silly movie, talking with a friend about anything else, some sliver of perspective. You want to feel normal, to remember that there is life apart from all the dark, a life you can move towards—in zigs and zags—as the days go on.

So take this lifeboat with me through some rough seas and calm, into the streaming light on the far shore. Let me tell you a story…

September 16, 2014

Margaret Dubay Mikus

8/23/06

Loving Detachment

To love and let go

even more so…yes

no result in mind

not even safety.

I do not know

why you came

but I do know

there is reason

behind apparent madness,

seeds of growth

sown in bog of darkness,

inevitable love infuses chaos.

Life is messy and rich

and unexpected.

Even funny…

yes.

Contents

Introduction

Loving Detachment

2009

For Lisa D’E

Meltdown

Caused to Stop and Think

Floating On Sitar Notes and Drum Beats

For B.R.…Again

New Hole

One Day When I Am Gone

Knowing What I Know Would I Let You Go?

Inspired by Something Partly Heard on the Radio

Driving I-55

Put Down the Sword of Self-Wounding

The Crack Between

Scene: The Future

Remodeling as a Transformative Device

Pam

For John

The Answer

This Big Thing

From the Stars

Collagen

From Mary Jane D. and Stephenie Meyer

Not Easy

Melting

Plea for Tolerance

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

You Can Ask

My Daughter

Purpose?

Ankles Cracking on the Stairs

Mirror: For Jan Gerber

Thanksgiving Grieving

Soon Enough

Animals on the Journey Home

Here I Am

Perfectly Imperfect

Where We Are in the Story

An Accounting

How to Not Feel a Failure

A Way to Release Sorrow

Small Hope

2010

Soave

Flying Geese

Because My Star

Selective Memory

Something Small

Ask and Response

Speaking Kidney

Family Photo

2010, Surgery

Complications

Comfort

Consternation

Hold On

Beginning a Very Long List

Room on Cardiology Floor

Gratitude

How I Choose to Tell the Story

Post Surgery Follow-Up

Deer

Inspired

Recipe

If I Had Known

Mustering Illusive Understanding

Close from a Distance

Life Skill

The Rest of the Story…

Attitude

Dear Body

2010, Life Resumes

Aftertaste

Reconsider

Ultimately Hopeful Witness

Left Wanting

Shadow Healing

Escape Velocity

Convert the Pain

Not Exactly Recrimination

Sitting With It

To Err on the Side of Caution

Real Cactus

Yes, I Noticed You Being You

Doors (3)

Thinking of You

Lie Down

Someone Said

Saturday Morning

Suggestible from a Distance

Memorial to a Joyful Life

The Mechanics of Healing

What I Saw

Affirming

For Lisa and Me

Not Exactly a Memoir

Dodge Poetry Festival #5

When You Left a Hole to Fill

Dodge Poetry Festival #11

Book Signing: Kay Ryan

Just Before Tops Diner

Reaction

The Day After the Call

Prayer for My Youngest Brother

At Odds

For Robert Pattinson

What Is Important

Right in Front of Me

Emotional Control

Reading The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

For Alex In Times of Trouble

Inevitable Woman Nature?

The Leaving of It

2011

Waiting in Michigan

For Stephen

Side by Side

Healing Grief

After

Poetry Reader: The Times We Are In

Traveling

From the 31st Floor at the Hyatt

For Rae

Hanging On

Mom

In Recovery

Mom Back in Hospital

Mom Report

Rae's Last Day

Early Days

Before/After Dr. Lisa

Remember Japan

Basking in Solitude

Deep Grieving

Casual Witness

Stretching Scars

Good Week: For Amy

Watching Boats on the Lake

For My Mother

Ten Days Left—Give or Take

Grieving as Part of Life

Strength

An Ordinary Conversation

Road Kill

Sniping

True Yoga

Hard Fall

Considering

The Greater Tuberosity

Follow-Up, Dr. Jason, K.

To Hammer

Returning to the Scene

For Barbara and Me In Some Ways in the Same Boat

Abrupt Clarity

Startling Starlings

Intoxication of Hope

2012

Remembering a Little Girl

If Then Yes

The Signature

Waiting at the Mini Car Repair

To Welcome the New

Choosing Expansive

Inspired

Monday Call

Broken Shoulder

Somewhere in the Middle More Towards the End

Baby Robins

In the Rain: Randolph St., Chicago

Reborn at 60

Monday Conversation

Being

From Eric, Prada, Crystal, and Others

Living in the Present Tense

The Penultimate Visit

After Kip (No Singing)

The Children Are Watching

Cactus Flower

7/13/12 AM

Gratitude as an Antidote to Grief

Grief and the Heart

Gorecki: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs

Jean McGrew Crosses the Bridge

Medication

Reading Garment of Shadows by Laurie R. King

For STM

Those Times

Three Months Out

Evening Walk

Grief Report—Four Months Out

Another Sister with Cancer

Permission to Myself

Evening Walk

Sliced by a Mandoline

Past Dusk Walk

2013

For My Son Who Is Leaving

Evening Walk Series

Walking Series: January Thaw

John is Dying They Say

Trusting I Will Know

Saturday Walk 5PM

Wake for My Brother

1964-2013

Prayer of Intercession

Funeral Night

Finished Later

Resolution of Darkness

Momentary

Appearance Can Deceive

Grief-Stricken

Metastases

From Jerry De G

Saturday Backyard

Thinking of Dorothy

The House on Cadieux

Stronger than You Think

Too Many Shoes

For My Baby Sister

Return

Take Care

Grateful

Phone Calls after Voice Lessons

Coming to Terms

Written at the Bahia Resort

Fear of Relaxation

For Comfort, Really

First Egret of the Season

Hope and Directions

Heart Instructions/Description

To Unravel Mystery

Not Looking Ahead Exactly

Nearing Anniversary

Yesterday’s Walk

Bedroom Window

Antidote to Violence

My Love,

Singer with the Rough Voice

Aggressor

Daily Pattern

The Other Side of Rain

Not Up to Me

Summer Night

MRI on Wed.

Almost 1 Year Later

Virtual Choir 4

Listening to and Reading Neil Gaiman

29th Birthday

Moving Closer

Shooting Stars

Good Books

Sarah Horn Sings with Kristin Chenoweth

Eric Whitacre: Godzilla Eats Las Vegas

Fearless in the Face of Panic

Glass Blowing

Sitting for a Portrait

Few Days Ago

Vacation

4 AM

Mom’s Birthday

After Talking with Dorothy

One Moment, Then the Next

The Path

Resilience

Helicopter

For Kelly’s Mom

Emotional Stew

Considering Mortality and Beyond

Walking Series

To Lift Sorrow Out

Preparing for Echocardiogram

Towards the End

Changes Everything

Dreaming of Dance

The Joke

After Roberta Who Asked

2013, Surgery

Healing through Re-Writing the Old Story

ER 2AM

Little Sister

Cockeyed

Observing Geese

Awareness

From Inside

Uterus 1

New Doctors

To Trust Again?

Another New Surgeon

To Tell You

Safe and Spooned

Kinds of Anxiety

Uterus 2

Rewind: Senseless Tragedy

Shadow and Sun

Still Thinking of Victor

Faith

White Woman from Illinois on Mandela

Dear Uterus:

Back to a Single Surgery

Addendum to the Life List

Post-Surgery

Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine

A Tiny Bit

Dodged a Bullet

Partnership

Accomplishment

All Is Well

Mother

Cervix

Effects of Anesthesia

From the Perspective of the Tree

Home from the Hospital

Loss

Energy Restored

2014, Post-Surgery, Life Resuming

Another Serious Diagnosis

First Night

May Be Called New Year

Door Into

History of the Hernia

Fact of the Matter

Snow

Changing Rules

Continual Conundrum

Vanished

Portrait of Michael Smith

Awareness of Progress

For Midge and Me

Non-Surgical Solutions

Ready to Be Released Back into the Wild

Six-Week Follow-Up

On Imperfection: For Corax

My Own Tribute

Still Fragile

Conscious

Reflection

Alok the Doctor

To Affirm

At Home in the Universe

Amidst the Buzz

Ripple Effect

Under the Influence

Melt

This Night

Full in It

Metamorphosis of Water

Empress of Inertia

West Yard

Red Fox

Seven Deer at Dusk

Metaphor for What?

Sturgeon Bay

Familiar Dark

Another Crisis

Office Thaw-Fly

Routine Checkup

Learning to Listen

2% 5-Year Survival Rate

Someone Posted on Facebook

1980s at a Guess

Threadbare

Melt Gift

In the Dark Mist of the Past

Dear Wednesday:

Noticing Owls

To Answer a Question Unstated

Global Reach

Approaching 40 Yrs. Married

Controlled Burn

Snow In April

Self-Kindness

In Gratitude

Timeline

Notes: Poems

Notes: Photos

About Margaret Dubay Mikus

Connect with MDM

Previously Published Poems

Also by Margaret Dubay Mikus

2009

1/29/09

For Lisa D’E

After Sharon Olds

Does it matter why

a half bowling ball

sticks out from my middle?

Do