Twirling in a Beam of Light - Judy Kirkwood

This book started in the 1970s when I was a writer of poems, having graduated with a Master's Degree from the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois, Chicago. I don't believe any of the poems in my original Masters manuscript survived, but some of the people depicted in it did, mainly me and my then boyfriend, then husband, then ex, and our friend Paul, who remains a Chicago character even if he lives in Indiana. Marriage is a fragile enterprise. A long one, like mine (35 years) is a history of more than two people. It is places and times, ideas and dreams, families of parents, children, and grandchildren, friends, houses and seasons. Yes, there was an actual balcony, and a pink room, and of course we are all small planets orbiting around each other and the sun, shooting stars and eclipsing our own radiance. Our stories continue with or without us. It wasn't until the poems for "Twirling in a Beam of Light" were in order that I realized the whole was really a memoir of growing from a girl, safe with her parents' voices in the background, to a girlfriend, wife, mom, work career and the transformation that aging offers. These poems are about joy and loss, grief and celebration, seeing oneself in context as the world changes. The message is you can start over and make a home among strangers, you can open the door to a new beginning, and no matter how many dark nights pass, you can fly through the day on a dust mote twirling in a beam of light.