The Past is Present is Past
Ode to Billie Holliday
The world in which I grow old is unrecognizable from the one I grew up in. As the years continue to slow me down, I’m invited to reflect upon my imperfect life which strives to implement and integrate the uncountable lessons of love and loss; to make peace with endings and the shedding of skin; and to rejoice in new beginnings marked by ah-ha moments.
Thirty-five years ago I was a student of writing and poetics at a small college in Boulder, Colorado. In my late thirties I confronted my desire to write by going back to school, where I studied hard and gave myself a foundation from which to create the art form that has long spoken to my heart. It was another time, but not unlike this time of eldering, in which I give myself to pen and page daily, growing as a writer, and as a person. Writing, like all art, asks both inner work and outer work, of us.
Yesterday I was rearranging and combining some boxes in the garage, and found a stack of writings from those times. So much for organizing the garage. The discovery stopped me and I got lost in reading the poetry of my younger self. In a bound document entitled Poems, I was greeted by a woman on the precipice of middle age, who was digging deep to find those things that mattered to her.
A piece called Ode to Billie Holiday made me smile, recognizing that a modicum of talent had helped move me forward into the writer’s life. The poet Ann Waldman, had written a comment in the margins of the poem: This is extremely cohesive because you have got a connection to your subject!!
Connection to your subject. A lesson in looking for what you know and what’s valuable to you. Write yourself, it says. The younger version of me was filled with a longing and imagining of an embodied Billie Holiday. She represented an aching emotional honesty, wrapped in exquisite, painful, beauty. I wanted to be like her — to expose the real and the raw; to un-edit myself and express love and loss the way that she did. My work is still about the human experiences of love and loss, forged in the fires of our pain and celebration.
Ode to Billie Holiday
I was born too late
to be backed by a sax
in some smoke filled room
at Mr. Kelly’s
satin gown and the cold touch
of a microphone stand
kicking back straight shots
no polite singers here
you love ‘em because they gargle with razor blades
their throats bleed
and we all relate to the pain
Lady Day was the best
singing the Duke like nobody
smokey soul
smooth black
her throat just bled natural
I found her in an old shop on Melrose
section in the back room
a scratchy rendition of What A Little Moonlight Can Do
then I understood what jazz was
dancing on the rim of that wound
changed my life
nobody buys it anymore
or pays to hear
electricity will never take the place
of what Ray Brown did with an upright
the world’s too fast
to sit still long enough to really dig it
in my living room
there’s a concert
turntable stage
and of all I ever heard
even her ghost
still reigns queen
they made a movie of her life
no justice though
just a rehash of the drug thing
and a string of faithless lovers
you can’t capture on film
the gift inside her
Lady Day was like one of those rocks
you split open
and it’s full of purple crystals
you can’t capture that
you’re lucky just to run your hands over the jagged edges
and go “WOW”
Stephanie Raffelock, 1990
I live in a different world than the one I grew up in, yet there are some things that have continually guided my way: I was inspired and moved by Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn. They helped me to understand that the human condition is one of suffering and celebration that sometimes makes no sense at all. I’m grateful for the education I received at Naropa. I will put the pen to page and write my life of sorrow and grace, of love and loss for as long as I possibly can. Worlds crash in on us everyday, and everything changes, but we can hang on to what is of value to our hearts. No one can take that away.
How do you reflect on the passage of time and personal growth through your creative journey?
What are the parallels between the your younger self and your current stage of life?
In what ways do you use art as a metaphor for life's challenges and joys?
Let’s have a conversation.
Wishing you all a Resilient and Mindful New Year. Your readership is precious to me. If you liked this piece, please leave me some heart, and a comment. Please share as a note, or with a friend. And please keep coming back. I appreciate you!
Happy New Year, 2025
~Stephanie
Thanks to these folks, and apologies to anyone I’ve forgotten, for inspiring and encouraging me to write those things I feel most connected to.
I consider my writing to be a companion, accompanying me into the new year. I recently started writing another memoir, this one about growing up as the eldest of 11 children. Writing through 2025 will be an up and down affair and I’m anxious to bring my young self to life on the page. Thank you for your poem, Stephanie. Beautiful.
What an achingly glorious reflection, Stephanie! And the poem... You and Lady Day--I can feel that connection, hear her voice, smell that smoke-filled room. I am grateful that you are writing, thinking, feeling, reflecting. Your window on this life is enriching and nurturing. What a treat to get to know you through your words! (And thanks for the shout-out. I'm happy to contribute my mite of encouragement to your journey.)