Entries from the Book of Days
There’s something to be said of the course of a life over years, of arduous journeys and lighted gifts.
I am glad I am not younger. I would not retrace any step, give up any ground gained. I have slowly learned this: all good gifts begin someplace deep within. Sometimes they necessarily begin in the echoic space that “without” carves.
They do not come to us from outside ourselves until we begin to do the work of stillness and wholeness, until we learn to perceive beauty and weave small joys where we are. The first soul we must mercifully embrace, in order to find ourselves embraced - and heed, in order find ourselves heeded - is our own.
I have learned that I have a lot of nerve - and that I’ve needed it all.
I’ve learned that I don’t have to resort to behaviors that are beneath the kind of person I want to be, even if situations afford me excuse (not that I don’t occasionally momentarily forget this).
I’ve learned what I need in order to breathe - what is oxygen and what is smoke.
I’ve learned not to try to drown feeling in any sort of distraction, but to be still, to heed everything, and to let silence work. No anesthesia.
I’ve learned that crying can be wise heart’s work. The best way beyond tears is straight through the middle of them.
I’ve learned that my head really can’t tell my heart what to do.
I’ve learned to see what small things do me good in my life and to follow them like a thread that leads me out of a maze into open air. If it makes me smile to go outside and look at the moon before I go to bed, then I make a ritual of going outside to look at the moon. If I pass a fascinating tree every evening coming home from work, then I stop to take a photograph. If flowers and gardening make me happy, then I make a garden. If writing in this blog is a way of being alive, then I write here when I can.
A breadcrumb path of poems traces this journey, all the way from the days when I dealt with the fact that I was living a life that wouldn’t work. What awes me now is how many deep good gifts I find coming back to me, answering that small inner work I undertook when there seemed no other way to get from today to tomorrow - lasting friends, joys, love.
2000 (the year of deciding dangerously)
2003
In the desert, there is always an oasis
2004
To you, sailing onward ever: a benediction
The stone path
2006
Comments (1) to “Entries from the Book of Days”
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Squirrely Jedi wrote:
I especially like “airless in a house of glass.” I think I’ve spent some time in one of those myself, though at a different time from another point of view. But the aching is the same, and perhaps that is why your words resonate for me.
But I’m glad you care to share what you have learned, and I’m glad that you write here when you can. You have provided me a moment to stop and think about other things besides homework.
Posted on 01-Feb-06 at 5:12 pm | Permalink