Merrywives’ Blog

Our community recently had the wonderful and joyful pleasure of having Maya Stein visit and share her amazing poetic talent with us. She shared the experience on her blog and it seemed appropriate to repost here as well:

I have so much to say about the past two days, and yet I can’t possibly contain it all here, in the span of a blog post. It feels like the world has shifted, and it’s beyond election results and the World Series and October segueing into November. It’s something about world view and peace-making and surrender. It’s about being aligned with the desert and safeguarded by mountains. It’s about self-care and self-love. And it’s about the grandeur of kindness.

Before I get into any of this, I have something to disclose. I’m Jewish. Now, that may not be a surprise to some of you (given my name) and may be of utterly no consequence to others, but as a Jewish woman, to walk into a Fundamentalist Mormon community to lead a writing workshop is of no small significance. After Joseph D. had invited me to Centennial Park, AZ, he alerted me to his community’s practices and I said, No problem, but as long as we’re being open, you should probably know I’m Jewish.

Joseph assured me that all would be fine, and we set a date for my arrival, but as I drove into Centennial Park, I couldn’t quite shake the slight nervousness I was feeling. I tried to stay neutral, thinking to myself that this was like any of the dozens of new situations I’d entered in during the past two months, but it was hard not to think that, in fact, this environment was different, and and that I was ill-equipped to meet it.

But seeing Joseph immediately shed my anxiety. He was a beaming smile of welcome, waving me in. His sister, Bethany (who’d introduced him to my work) was there, too, and together they brought me to Lorine’s house, where I’d be staying for the night. I went to my room to wash my face and my jaw dropped when I walked in. The room was palatial, fit for royalty. Then I saw the gift basket. An enormous and overflowing collection of goodies: homemade lemon curd and scone mix and some kind of jam, fresh apples, a beautiful notebook, a CD, and other things too, all wrapped beautifully, entwined in decorative leaves. There was a card peeking out of the package with my name on it.

I couldn’t quite take it in. The room, the gifts, the welcome. I washed my face and met Joseph back in Lorine’s kitchen. I thanked them for the basket, blushing, a slight embarrassment in my words. I felt so humbled, and it was difficult to accept that all of this had been done for me.

There were more than 20 participants in the workshop – men, women, teenage boys and girls, parents, teachers, students. An amazing collection of writers, each bringing their unique voices into the room. Apparently, Joseph and Bethany had spread quite a word about my writing to their community, and there were many people there who were already familiar with my work, and quite a few who’d been regular “10-line Tuesday” readers for awhile. They made me feel like a celebrity who had popped into their hometown, and completely gave themselves over to our work together. They were attentive and engaged and appreciative, and I sat there, in a mildly panicked awe. How had this happened? How had so much good come my way? How had this community made itself so available to little old me?

After the workshop ended, we all – and I mean all – went to Harvey Sr.’s house and had a lovely soup-and-salad dinner beautifully made by Joseph. And then we dove into Polly’s pumpkin pie, which was the yummiest I’ve ever had. And there was conversation and coffee and I did a short reading to a very attentive audience and Harvey Sr. read some of his work, too, and I lost complete track of time. When I got back to Lorine’s house, it was almost 1. I was filled with a helium giddiness. I was floating through the room.

Here’s what I really want to say: I think there’s a part of me that can’t quite believe I’m “worthy” enough, or “good” enough. Undeserving of such a welcome reception, not having “earned” the attention. This part of me finds it easier to stay a little hidden, a little off the beaten track. This slightly more crumpled-up version – while she secretly wants to be admired – nevertheless shrinks back from the attention when comes, thinks herself too gluttonous, too greedy. For her, there’s a certain derelict shame in being loved too much, in being celebrated with an unabashed exuberance.

And there’s more. This part of me can also feel suspicious of too much kindness, of too much good coming her way. She wonders what will be asked in exchange, or when the other shoe will drop. She is slightly distrustful of compliments and uneasy around any degree of lavishing.

It’s a terrible predicament – to feel both undeserving of generosity and attention, and to be unable to truly receive it when it comes.

So here’s another thing I want to say: I am ready to put both of these beasts down. I am ready to discard – for good – the ridiculous notion that who I am, just as I am, isn’t worthy of celebration. I am ready to throw away the doubt and suspicion that arises when good things come my way. I am ready to accept bigness, in all its forms, and not shrink back.

Because doing anything less is a kind of self-diminishment, a hideous contortion of the spirit and soul, and I see that I have absolutely no use for it anymore. It’s a long outgrown pair of shoes that to walk in now would be so hazardous as to be catastrophic.

This is what happens when you allow that bigness to come: it lights you from within, it shows you the path, it tells you you’re doing just fine, it gives you even more courage, and it takes a lot of pain away, pain that has to do with not believing in yourself, or not seeing your own beauty or skill or capacity in the world. Allowing bigness to come means open and free and full and love and the wild ride that involves us becoming who we are meant to be.

So I have to thank the people of Centennial Park for showing me a thing or two about how to live big, and how to reach a hand across the aisle, and how to show up in my fullest self, and for feeding me in more ways that they can know.

. . .

This morning, after Joseph’s totally delicious Eggs Benedict (which he made with salmon just for kosher-girl me), I sadly bid goodbye to the clan and began the drive north to Salt Lake City. I took a detour through Zion National Park and man oh man, I could have stayed there for days, parked myself in a cabin and spent hours by bike or on foot, exploring the trails. There was such a sense of grandeur here, too, another kind of bigness, Mother Nature dwarfing everything else, and I loved the return to earth that that gave me, perspective, calm, surrender to what is alway going to be bigger than me. I took a gazillion photos – so tough to pare them down here – and drove in awe on the scenic route through the park before reluctantly heading to Highway 89 for the hefty haul up to Salt Lake.

This is a beautiful road to take, I discovered, and I was hard-pressed not to stop every few miles to snap more photos of the mountains in the distance, and the beautiful flaxen-colored fields to either side of me, and the horses, and the clouds, and the road itself. I have to say, if I’ve learned nothing else on this trip (though believe me, I have!), I’ve learned to see the singular beauty that is a stretch of asphalt pointing toward a horizon line.