3 x 3
Trees breathing
Breath condense
Morning mist
Jessan Dunn Otis (c) 12.21.2014
“3 x 3” – poem
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Magic Words – essay
Magic Words
Being raised as I was, there were three phrases or “Magic Words” that were consistently spoken and required – “Please”, “Thank you”, and “Excuse me”.
When I had children of my own, I taught them the same lessons I had been taught when I was growing up – both in our home and outside our home.
Over time, I’ve come to realize that what I came to believe was common courtesy is, often, not so common. Nevertheless, the lessons I was taught about the “Magic Words” have persisted.
To this day, I hear my Mother’s and Father’s voice whenever I speak or write those words; and, I continue to wonder why they’ve, often, become so uncommon in life and in work.
Thanks, Mom and Dad, for teaching me one of many important, simple lessons.
Your Loving and Devoted Daughter,
~ Jessan
Thank You ~ many languages
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#ActsOfKindness – essay
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. ~ Mark Twain #quote
#ActsOfKindness – essay
More and more, recently, it seems to me that what’s needed are more acts of simple courtesy and kindness. A smile to a stranger. The door held open for the next person behind you. A call and/or handwritten note to a loved one you know is not in such a good place today; or, to whom you’ve not reached out for too long. The simple “Please.” and “Thank you.”
With that in mind, via various social media, I’ve been posting with the hashtag #ActsOfKindness.
If you, like me, agree that our Big Blue Marble could use just a little more courtesy, a little more kindness, please be free to use and/or post using #ActsOfKindness.
Thanks, in advance and anticipation ~
~ Jessan
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Before All Our Lives Began To Change – poem
BEFORE ALL OUR LIVES BEGAN TO CHANGE
Before all our lives began to change
time was stretched between holidays like
carnavale lights and summer lasted forever
every year until Labor Day mysteriously
arrived again to change living to another circle
It seemed we played all the time — hair cuts on
darby horses and watermelon seed fights, building
castles of sand and jelly fish oozing against the
jetties, discovering the nest holes of horseshoe
crabs below the high tide line, and snow forts drifted
three stories every January and February, sledding
hellions down Cooperstown Road, the cold and snowflakes
cutting younger cheeks, with the excruciating pleasure
to do it, again Playing “I have a little umbrella,”
dragging the chair covers across the sand like dragon tails
or lizards or princesses Shrieking to begin hide-and-seek,
crouched under the crocheted orange and blue and brown
comforter — dying to be found and hoping that we would
never be discovered, because that discovery always
ended in a serious session of being tickled until we
could not breathe
But, then, living changed us into other circles,
other places, other people.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dedicated ~ In Love and Memory to: Barbara Dunn Blossom, Genevieve Dunn, Helen Smith Dunn, Mahlon H. Dunn, Jr., Tacy Dunn SanAntonio
(c) 1997 Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis ~ RHODE ISLAND WOMEN SPEAK: An Anthology of Authors and Artists, The Rhode Island Committee, The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), Ed. Rosemary W. Prisco, p.19.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
White Butterflies
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Before All Our Lives Began To Change – narrative
Before All Our Lives Began to Change – narrative
In every life there are times that drive us back inside ourselves, that cause us to remember people, places, events that may have been met, passed through and/or witnessed many years earlier; and, to reflect upon those remembrances from a different point of view.
In particular, the past year and a half has been another period of that kind of reflection in my life. Often, these times a hard. Frequently triggered by a loss. That is true with me.
I write about this not from the point of pity but, rather, with gratitude. It’s been another kind of refining, tempering and becoming more clear, less “cluttered” and closer (still) to my truer self – a life-long process.
This is just to say that if you, too, have been suffering, felt lost, are confused or are in a moment of pain and seek peace – keep searching, go to those “hard places” that only you truly know about your life, open your Spirit to the simple beauty that is always available.
No one ever told me this living would be easy. I’m not telling you that either.
What I’m saying is face your fears (they are illusions). Embrace (wholeheartedly and openly) your pain. Call it by name, deal with it and, then, move on to the better parts that are waiting for you to arrive.
What I’m continually reminded of when I re-emerge from these times is that the singular gifts of love, light and laughter are always available, it is a choice to receive or reject them.
In gratitude,
~ Jessan
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The Cambridge Poem
T H E C A M B R I D G E P O E M ~ #poetry
Commencement Address – Class of 1990 – The Cambridge School, Weston, MA
Give your regards when you go to the reunion and at the dinner,
say that you were thinking about them They’ll, eventually, recall
your name; you went to the movies with that one, felt the weight
of their life when they sat next to you – they never said a word
All of you are rising friends: one used to play the piano, one once
wrote a play, one even seemed awakened enough to photograph the
fields as the unencumbered with tutored minds and unrehearsed passions
Meet them at the door, they’ve brought the souvenirs of time; a seashell
from the Pacific, the nose of a marble saint, and from the field
a spent casing divulged from the flower bed
Face a rising world bearing its gifts in its hands, kiss your incidental
dreams – rise, move away, take others
Give your regards to the well-protected; you knew them, you went
to school together There’s something to bury when you begin
to move away When you are ready and rich in your wish for the
world, you have a new race to start
From the heart of this darkened quadrangle, I hear the library
hum, an immense chorus of writers murmur inside their books along
the unlit, alphabetical shelves; each one stitched into their
own private coat, (you will have to write your own) together forming
a continuous, enormous breath of language
I picture a figure in the act of reading, shoes on the desk, head tilted
into the wind, a person in two worlds, holding the nape of their neck
as another’s life saturates the page; or, in the middle of a thesis,
moving from paragraph to verse, touring endless rooms (you will have to write your own)
I hear the voice of my mother and father reading and inside their
voices lay other, distant sounds
I see us reading ourselves away from ourselves, straining in circles of
light to find more light until the line of words becomes a trail
that we follow across a page and you will have to listen hard to
hear the voices going away (and, you will have to write your own).
© 1990 Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis
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A Story About Fireflies
A Story About Fireflies
The two men walked farther and farther ahead of us, while you and I trolled up that newly black-topped hill, talking of many things in that hot, Vermont early evening.
From time to time we became aware that if we wandered too far left or right as we slowly zigzagged up that hill, the sky becoming darker, that we would be in jeopardy of stumbling over the high edges of that pitch black macadam into the low growth and bushes left and right.
Just at a certain moment, when the sun had barely disappeared but still cast its last light into the coming night, we stopped. On both sides of that road those dark bushes and low growth exploded with the flickers of thousands of fireflies.
It was like this – rising macadam heat, two voices in the distance, fading light and being surrounded by fireflies, fireflies, fireflies.
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The only way to change the world is to change the story.
The only way to change the world is to change the story.
Eggs
The first time I read this sentence I read it, thought I understood it and read on. That was some time ago.
The next time I read this sentence some time had passed, a few life-changing events had occurred and, while I was the same person, I wasn’t the same person and I began to understand a bit more.
The most recent time I read this sentence I stopped reading and breathed in the spirit of this sentence, as if it was a sweet-scented and familiar perfume or food or light.
The world was still the world, the sentence was still the same sentence; and, yet, everything was changed.
What’s your story?
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It’s About The Conversation
So much has changed since I first came on-line many years ago. At first, it was all about “getting your message” out – the right format, the correct keywords, long-tail, SEO, tagging and on and on.
Over time, thank goodness, there’s been a shift – from “permission marketing” (thank you, Seth Godin) to “Return on Relationship” (#RonR) (thank you, Ted Rubin) and more – i.e. Vincent Wright, Jay Deragon, Adam Kovitz, Mark Traphagen, Michael Iva, Deap Khambay, and Arianna Huffington – to name only a very few of the many who have influenced and informed me.
Over time, for me, it’s become more about passion and compassion, about refining one’s vision and perfecting one’s skill(s) and supporting what speaks to one’s heart, not only to what adds to one’s pocket.
True enough, we all have to live – keep a roof over our head and some food on the table. However, with the fluidity and ease of social media, we can, indeed, do both; and, in the process, become more enlarged, more compassionate, more informed and empathetic. “Our world” transforms into a greater understanding of the larger world
Dancing Woman
in which we all share – our Big Blue Marble.
The exchange of ideas, issues, TedX talks, Playing for Change videos, posts, sharing, “Liking”, and RTing has become, for me, ultimately about conversations. That we’re talking with each other, not just to each other. That we’re not, simply, “marketing”, we’re (each in our own ways) creating possibilities for change because we’re stepping outside our own skins, revealing our stories and discovering just how similar and related we are. It’s about the conversations.
What say you, please?
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Poetry as Narrative
THE RISK OF REAL GROUND
Stepping into air the woman falls
momentarily catching hair and nails
as on a wing or cliff or webs
First this, then that
Falling is water washing flesh away
it changes everything
begin to learn, again
Earth gives up pieces of itself so slowly
breathing passes through ash or oak or bone
amber perfume fills a room
A hand touches and moves away
you meet yourself
passing by a shattered glass
Say you understand, say you say
stand up, open your mouth
what are you standing on.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
– for Todd Bartel, Joanna Barth, Miguel Calderon, Sean Coel, Jemima Farwell, Lael Jacobs,
Elizabeth Jackson Johnston, Blane Kieng, John McLaughlin, Anna Regnery, Charis SanAntonio,
and Jodi Schwartz
(c) 1986 Jessan Dunn (DeCredico) Otis
Jessan Dunn Otis|Writer 