Atalanta Rising

East to West
A wind in a joyous race 
All around the circumference
Of this wide lush world 
Rushing far past the trapped 
Horizons of her bound fate.
 
North and South
 Shooting through sky.
Bursting through earth.
Swiftly escaping
Those crushing shackles 
Twisting her flight.
 
No Longer Anchored
Only to gaze upon those glittering lights 
Cast over velvety blankets of 
 Midnight skies.
 She’s blazing outwards now, towards
 The vastness of her new untethered fate.
 
Free to Roam
 Amongst those brightly 
 Glowing sign posts 
 Stretching out across time.
 Those ancient constellating maps
 Pointing in all directions.
 
All at Once
 She became a beat in sync with the universal heart.
 A thread of light woven back into
 The veil of the eternal mind.
 Expanding out to be with all things, in all places, at all times.
 Yet, always close and never lost from you.
 
Because the Universe
 And all its mysteries that exist beyond our proving
 Stitched your heart to hers and her heart to yours. 
 Laced and tied together with those celestial threads
 More clearly seen with the heart
 Than the eyes.
 
And the Stars
 The stars in her eyes were the stars in yours
 A shared sacred reflection.
 A guiding light born alive between two.
 Her stardust compass
 Always pointing the way home to you.

I typically haven’t included a back story for the creative writing posts I’ve made here.  I’m making an exception for this one though.

Twenty-one years ago I started going to a small local coffee shop near my home. I would pop in for a bit to relax or socialize with the baristas and other regulars before going to pick up my oldest child from kindergarten.  Going there became a cherished routine for me.  Until this last fall I’d go there daily, sometimes twice in a day.  As the years marched by, my schedule varied with how long I could stay to visit.  But I was there at least once a day, even if I was running out the door as fast as I ran in.  I’ve made friendships there that go back nearly as long as I’ve been showing up.  

It’s my community, my home base, my Cheers. 

I met Sharon when she came to work at my beloved coffee joint 14 years ago, it may even be 15 by now.  She’s smart, funny, friendly and very kind to all her customers.  She has a way of making us all feel very seen and special.  Unsurprisingly it didn’t take long before she was the manager. 

This local spot was already a great place, but after Sharon came onto the scene it began to grow into something even more special for so many of us.  Sharon really knows how to knit people into a community.  She understands what it means for people to have a Cheers in their life, a place where “everybody knows your name.” 

I can’t remember how soon after Sharon came to us before the owner decided to open a sister store a few miles from the current one.  When the new store opened I decided to pop in and check it out.  It was nearing closing time and two women were busily cleaning when I got there.  I walked in and this tall, friendly 20-something called out my name, telling me to “Come on in!”  She said it as you would to a long expected friend, someone you’d been hanging out waiting for.  She went behind the counter and asked if I wanted my usual.  

I was caught off guard — I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t remember her as one of the baristas I’d met over the years, from the main store. Not anyone I’d met around town.  I sheepishly asked her to remind me of her name. Amused, she chuckled and told me she was Sharon’s daughter, Amanda.

 This wasn’t one of my smoother moments in life — my brain’s little hamster wheel jammed! I just stalled, standing there trying to put the puzzle pieces together. I was certain I met Sharon’s daughter at least once, briefly, in passing. But she looked different — hair color, maybe?  Yes! That was it, she’d made a dramatic change in her hair color. She never worked at the main store. How was she so comfortable with me and knows my ‘usual’ if I’d only met her once?  What do I say now?!  <…brain loading…>

She could see I was frozen. She smiled and started teasing me a little: how I didn’t recognize her, how it’d be hard to not know my drink — since I always order the same thing. Every. Single. Time. “4 shot Americano shots before the water.”  All the teasing was very friendly and funny.  I liked her immediately after that!  She never did say how she knew my drink though, I think she thought it was funnier that way.  

I never knew Amanda as a close friend would, but we were always very friendly with each other. Truthfully, I knew Amanda best through her mom and all the family stories we’d swap with each other over the years.

Starting in 2017 I was deeply involved with caretaking for both my grandmother and mother.  My family and I were going through a number of challenging circumstances.  During that same time frame Amanda was starting to go through some physical challenges that eventually revealed she had a very rare and not well understood form of sarcoma.  Sharon and I would trade stories, support, and encouragement over the ups and downs of these challenging events unfolding in our lives and the lives of our family.

At some point in October of 2o22 Sharon and I were talking about how the thought of decorating for the holidays felt like a lot to deal with — any thoughts of the holidays were hard. Amanda’s condition was becoming increasingly fraught with enormously painful complications.  Hard feels like such an understated word for what was happening to Amanda and her family.  I don’t have the correct command of words to communicate how difficult the path Amanda and her family walked was.  Even if I did? Those stories are not mine to tell the world. 

 What I feel I can tell you is how this particular sarcoma progressed: In the beginning it caused her bones to break too easily. She would need surgeries, casts, and bed rest.  But at least the doctors were able to heal her breaks.  Towards the end she had to live with bones that would shatter with even the most gentle shifting of her position in bed.  They shattered in ways that could not be set, repaired, or healed.  The pain, the roller coaster of hopes and disappointments — a weary challenge to even imagine, let alone bear.

Amanda passed away not long after that conversation. She was 33.

But I’m not here to talk about the sadness and pain, I am here to celebrate the inspiration of the life lived and the life still living. 

The day Sharon and I were talking about the holidays, she mentioned a comment Amanda made. She told Sharon that she loved Christmas lights because it felt like she was getting to look at little stars living on earth for a bit. I think she phrased it differently, but that’s how it pressed into my mind. 

Those words from Amanda landed in that place of my being where my awe in the mysteries of the universe and eternity live within me.  I know in reality that comment about Christmas lights wasn’t a secret message from her to me.  But it still landed in my spirit like a whisper, asking me to remind her mom about that.  

Not about liking Christmas lights themselves. But how she saw those strands of twinkling lights strung all over houses and yards, as if they were little stars getting to live on earth for a bit. I imagined how Amanda must have been walking around with a lifetime of treasured starlight, star bright memories tucked away in her heart.  

Then it reminded me of Carl Sagan’s quote: “We’re all made of star stuff.”  

Ever since that conversation I’ve meditated on how I could help Amanda surprise her mom with some pretty little stars on earth, something she could hold.  A reminder of how Amanda is made of star stuff. How all the elements that made her have been here from the beginning of all things, are still here, and will always be here.  For a time, too short for us, that star stuff came together to live on earth as Amanda, twinkling and shining her light with us. Now she lives as part of our starlight, star bright nights, still shining her light. 

I meant this project to be completed for Amanda’s year anniversary, then her birthday anniversary, but I was trying to make something I’d never made before.  I made a necklace and it was a very challenging project for me.  Though it never quite reached the vision I had, it’s finally complete.  I never intended to write a poem, it just started rising in my mind as I worked on the necklace, until it had a form of its own and asked to be finished.

While the poem was inspired by Amanda and written for Sharon, there’s a little bit of love in there for our friends at the coffee shop, Tom and Sandy.  Selfishly, for myself and my family too.  And after the past four years of loss the world just endured while having to get up and just keep moving like nothing happened, I don’t think Sharon would mind if I shared the love with you too.

While I missed all those other dates, I did finish it in time for Mother’s Day. 

I think Amanda would approve of that.

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