Reflections of My Heart: Wanderer

Blossom of a white magnolia tree

In 1989, a woman wandered the streets of Santa Monica, homeless, disheveled, emaciated. Every day, I saw her in the same spot, and my heart went out to her, so I stopped what I was doing and said a silent affirmation for her benefit. I asked my light to touch hers, and a moment later, she looked up, dazed but aware.

Finding herself hiding from the world and without shelter, she sat under a tree and watched as a white magnolia flower fell.

I continued saying my solemn declarations, confirming her emotional support. Surprisingly enough, one day, while walking by her, she, too, saw the amethyst sky, and she awoke. Something inside awakened her. It was a long-lost dream that suddenly came alive. I never saw her again.

Wanderer

The woman walked all alone one day,
Sadly, along the charcoal-darkened streets,
Drifting silently nowhere

She glanced up
And found herself
Hidden from life’s lighted path!

Then, under a pale, pale flowing tree
She watched the white falling petals wilt
Wilting became familiar to her.

She continued her strolls, but
A glimpse of silver light
Slipped through the amethyst sky,
And woke something deep within her
Which had almost died

It was a long-lost, forgotten dream
That caught her very eye!

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: Turbulent

Hurricane Isabel from ISS

In the summer of 1982, I was midway through my college education. My life had never been completely calm. Because I am disabled with cerebral palsy, left-side hemiplegia, and dyslexia, it has been a series of conflicts. And not because I wanted it that way, but because the able-bodied professionals who were supposed to help me could not handle a person like me who did not want pity. I wanted to make something of myself and my life, and the experts did not like that.

Like the title of the poem, this caused me tumult. Emotional agitation came after years of my civil rights being manipulated and my boundaries violated.

The more I fought to grow and become more independent, the more they tried to reduce me. Piece by piece, they tried to dismantle my integrity and functionality. They tried to take my power away from me. They even tried to make me feel unworthy of my own efforts to make something of myself. But through it all, my voice grew stronger. I refused to give up or give in, and I refused to be humiliated or treated in a high-handed manner.

Even though the mighty whistle seemed to take over my weeping heart, from the silence, a sound emerged—a ripple that carried a reverberation of hope.

To this day, this hope continues to infuse my healing soul.

Turbulent

The winter was calm and mellow,
But suddenly the stillness changed
Into a turbulent spring

Week by week,
Day by day,
The weather got progressively worse

Tumultuous waters clashed
Without a star in the sky

Its mighty whistle had taken over, Divine!

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Original text ©2024 by Karen Lynn-Chlup. All rights reserved. Image courtesy of Mike Trenchard, Earth Sciences & Image Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Reflections of My Heart: Traveling Rhythms

Photo of Japanese maple tree in leaf.

I wrote this poem in late 1983 while in college. During this time, learning by studying was a goal and expectation. I was determined to let nothing stop me from becoming more educated so I could thrive. Even though there were serious challenges, I confidently took them on. I continued finding reasons to smile and give thanks for the sun shining down, and throwing its rays to see me through. Enduring all, I walked tall and stayed strong like the Japanese maples as their roots grow strong.

On this day, I had an overpowering feeling. As I walked, I looked up at the beautiful golden canopy, but it turned cold on me—biting cold for Los Angeles. Listening to my discordant tempo, I heard the difference between my left foot and my right. I looked down at my legs. What I saw and heard then made me become who I am today. In that moment, I found my harmony and rhapsody.

Traveling Rhythms

The golden sky
Turned on me
With gray frost
As I walked
In syncopated
Rhythm down
The still street

I looked towards
The ground
Hearing the iambic sound
Of my stride

The right, strong and obstinate,
Keeping time with the left,
A delicate melody

Both traveling in
Separate rhythms…
Never combining
Their dissonance with their harmonies

Oh, why?
I ask myself
Why
Can’t you blend
Into rhapsody?

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: Transparent Whiskers

Line drawing of a catfish's head showing its whiskers

One sunny day back in 1983, I walked to a neighborhood park that had a shallow, still pond.

When I sat by the water, I sat to calm my racing mind. But as I sought repose, I observed ripples in the water. As I watched, looking for regularity and peace, the ripples were not at peace. Nor were they soothing. Rather, churning, choppy, agitated, as if they replicated my emotions.

But then I noticed bubbles all over the shallow water. Their uneasiness was mine. Just beneath the surface, translucent bodies swam. Their faces, with their long, thin, hair-like whiskers, intimidated me.

But I wanted to be rugged, so despite being startled, I looked again. Catfish with barbels hanging from their mouths.

These fish are intelligent. The bubbles were formed by the father blowing air for the babies into the nest. The fathers swim to the top of the water so they can inhale and then aerate their family’s eggs.

At that point, I remembered that I too had to breathe. The catfish let me remember why I had come to the water’s edge. They were happy doing what they were doing. I needed to be too! So I softened, releasing the feelings I held in the back of my mind, and letting go, found happiness where I was. The catfish helped me do this. By getting caught up in watching them, I changed my state of mind to one without conflict, to a place where I did not feel threatened anymore.

Transparent Whiskers

The pond is clear.
A gentle glimpse of water,
It shines brightly as can be
But when it ripples, it moves with rigid fear
And lack of ease.

Its soft elements turn nature
Into stormy whiskers as
It becomes translucent
To all who threaten them!

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: Time Ticks

Photo of clock face of Big Ben, London, UK

In 1985, I was a student at Santa Monica College, but I had to deal with the same issues and same kind of wrongheaded experts that I had faced right after I graduated from high school in 1969 when Rehab labeled me retarded and sent me to work in Handicraft Industries.

The California Department of Rehabilitation and Santa Monica College made it unbelievably hard for me to continue my education. I fought back by writing to the dean. There were two people at the college who made it extremely difficult for me. One told me I cheated on a test. That was the woman at the Resource Center, and she told the dean that, too. And the counselor told me I could only take my test in the disability office. Outside of the school, Rehab told the college I was retarded.

I never found out why the woman who ran the Resource Center had it in for me, but she sure did. And then my counselor, who himself was deaf and mute, claimed I had scattered thoughts because I was interested in dance, recreation, physiology, and sociology. That’s not scatterbrained. That’s having a wide range of healthy interests.

This episode was very difficult to face. It took everything in my breath and power to stay calm, feel safe, while knowing that this was a lie so that they could come out smelling like roses, when they knew what they were doing.They had met their match and knew they were in the wrong. They were trying to get through this unscathed. Yet it was okay if they did it to me a fourth time. Looks very wrong to me.

I didn’t want to hurt people, but I had to set boundaries, especially since I was getting exhausted by this ongoing discrimination, and I had to find some self-care time. I couldn’t be a schmatte (a torn rag, something worn out or of little value).

I became a teacher, and in a loving way, teaching others how I wanted to be treated and respected. I didn’t want to be afraid to speak up and have a voice that they would hear.

Therefore, I wrote this post to face my feelings, express myself, and to become a better human. A person learning each day about the twists and turns of life, asking myself if I did the right thing or not, and always coming back to living in the moment.

Time Ticks

Time ticks by
With each passing minute,
Ever-changing

And I
Am forever caught in that moment
Testing it

Time
What is it?
Time is but a passing second in our lives,
Trying to teach me life’s secret treasures

However, Time has not been my friend
Time instead has been my foe.

Taunting and twirling me
Around like a spinning top

Whirling me in different directions
With many discomforts,
Of anxiety and agony

Only to find what living in the moment
Truly is!

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: Thy Beauty

Photo of rainbow in a red, sunset sky.

I wrote this poem on July 29, 1981, a day I remember vividly.

That spring, I had turned thirty, and I vowed, for the next thirty years, I would keep working through each and every obstacle in my life.

I vowed I would welcome the beauty I was given with my disabilities and learn to love myself unconditionally. I would not ask myself why…

Dear Universe, if I am as beautiful within as you say, then, in turn, I will not ask why. I will accept. I will do my best on earth, eternally. I will be a light within you. I fully commit to doing everything in my power to stay positive and embrace myself with full gratitude, knowing that you made me this way for a reason.

Thy Beauty

If beauty dwells
Beneath the skin,
Then I must beam bright within

Beyond the surface
One can see
How I’ve walked this earth eternally

So tell me God, tell me true,
Why do I shine like I do?

Others tell me all the time,
Why does it seem so
Difficult each and every time!

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: The Swan

Photo of white swan on still water in the moonlight

It was sunset. April 24th 1983, the day time changed, the day we turned our clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time. And the evening was perfect.

It was safer, then, for a woman to go outside in the evening glow and enjoy the sunset and solitude. I felt drawn, almost by instinct as a sensory mechanism, so I followed my instincts to the still pond in the park, near where I lived.

There, I sat on a bench, all to myself. And watched, in quiet solitude, a beautiful swan gliding, moving continuously and effortlessly. Lighted only by the moon. An important signification. As I sat in harmony, my soul lit with its oneness.

The Swan

One swan on a pond
Is gliding through the water
In moonlit hours.

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: The Singing Tree

Photo of song sparrow singing in a tree

One midmorning in the spring of 1978, as I took a walk down my block, a sound and a feeling came over me—from a tree. They overcame me. Strong. Indestructible. Everlasting. But not harsh or stern. Gentle, like water flowing in the channel of a stream.

That moment took me to a better place. In that moment, I knew I wanted to live my life like that. I wanted to go with the flow of life, always flowing like water in a stream.

The Singing Tree

Tall as the celestial rim above,
Sturdy as the unbreakable earth below,
Soft as a gentle pendulum swinging side to side

The tree cares for the singing bird that looks for shelter
In the tree’s branch way down below.

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: The Sculptor

Photo of a model wearing a bodice and skirt inspired by trees

I wrote this poem in 1978, a year when I had many realizations about myself. Instead of feeling inferior and ashamed of myself, I decided to adopt a tolerant, sympathetic approach to who I was. Instead of hating who I was, I made a conscious decision to love myself unconditionally. I would love myself with all my heart and live in peace and self-acceptance forever more. This was my gift to myself. With it, I sowed a seed that soon grew into a mighty tree that bore life-giving fruit, a crop I harvested, as I became what I believed.

I was beautiful just the way I was. I held my head high, then, with feeling and power, living in a state of being certain, of certitude, creating my own circumstances. Remember, if Karen can do it, you can do it too.

The Sculptor

I know a young sculptor
Who chiseled a chunk of marble,
As he carved a girl’s reflection out of it,

He gave her laurel wreaths
And hands,
As different as branches from a tree

Her left hand
A gentle lamb like a crescent moon
Her right
As eloquently strong, like a lion providing for the lamb!

The sculptor,
So artistic,
Planted seeds and harvested many a dream!

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: The Road Back Home

Photo of dirt road cut into the ground.

I wrote this poem in 1996. In November or December, I had come down with a sore throat, so I missed some work. That was bad enough because my job involved teaching dance to elderly people, and I loved it. But when I phoned my boss to say I was well enough to come back, she said, “Don’t bother. We found somebody else.”

That same day, I began my job hunt. I kept trying to find another job. Something. Anything. I kept looking and reaching out to any positions available. All to no avail. There was nothing. I had to accept each defeat and keep moving forward. But I never gave up through all the disappointments and hardship. Somehow, someway, I stayed positive and kept a smile on my face, through all the things that cause pain and hardship.

It took until the following September before I could start a new position, and it included teaching dance, public speaking, and sitting on the organization’s board. Remember, if Karen can do it, you can do it too.

The Road Back Home

You say
I have the road map
To the tunnel
For which
I’ve searched
And looked.

I see signs,
I’ve used directions,
All, leading me nowhere
Or,
To dead ends
Signifying nothing

I called for help,
For directions,
For someone’s guidance,
To be lead
To the road
Back home!

You can order my poetry collection, including this poem, here: Reflections of My Heart.

Reflections of My Heart: Wanderer

Reflections of My Heart: Turbulent

Reflections of My Heart: Traveling Rhythms

Traveling Rhythms

Reflections of My Heart: Transparent Whiskers

Transparent Whiskers

Reflections of My Heart: Time Ticks

Time Ticks

Reflections of My Heart: Thy Beauty

Thy Beauty

Reflections of My Heart: The Swan

The Swan

Reflections of My Heart: The Singing Tree

The Singing Tree

Reflections of My Heart: The Sculptor

The Sculptor

Reflections of My Heart: The Road Back Home

The Road Back Home

Inspiration and Hope for People with Cerebral Palsy and Learning Disabilities

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