The perfectionist in me envisioned something slightly different. A theme, perhaps.
But since I started this with no real vision of what it would be, I'm seeing now that it's kind of a scrapbook.
Or maybe more like a sketchbook.
Some words, some scribbles, some things ripped from magazines for inspiration.
I think I may start posting work that I've done each day. . .
maybe.
But for today, I wanted to post this poem, one of my favorites.
I see so many people around me that seem to be stuck in places they don't want to be. Relationships, jobs, cities. Ruts.
Life is so precious and short.
I pray I never take any of it for granted. Especially the moment in life when I knew I needed to make some changes and I started planting one foot in front of the other.
Funny - during one difficult period in my life I read that what had happened to me physically probably stemmed from my opposition to change. I scoffed and said to a friend that I had no problem with change. I did it all the time. She looked at me like I was crazy and said "well you need to change," as if what I had just said was pure nonsense. She informed me that I needed to put both of my hands over my throat (the chakra for change) and affirm to myself "I am willing to change."
So, I did it. I walked around all day long, hands over throat, repeating "I am willing to change. I am willing to change. I am willing to change." . . . all the time sure that I was always willing to change and it was pure poppycock. Whateva.
Guess what? I'm STILL changing.
And looking back, that was a time in my life that I was truly blind to my own needs. I am grateful for that wise friend that didn't judge and instead simply helped me along my way.
But anyway - that wise woman was my dear friend and mentor, Kiernan.
And this is one of my favorite poems which she read in her beautiful storytelling way.
It has helped change my life.
The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
from New and Selected Poems, 1992
Beacon Press, Boston, MA
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