along the waterfront - Missy D and I sure do get around and we like to take lots of photos
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The lines flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
Derek Mahon
there will be dying, there will be dying - this line leaps out at me. I must prepare, I must be ready. A very good friend sent me this poem a few days ago and although upon reading it I thought it was very beautiful and the gesture of her sending it to me made me feel loved and happy a little voice, tiny, barely a whisper said to me ... that's not necessarily true.
It wasn't even actually a voice, more just a feeling ... in my stomach, a tiny knot feeling. That tiny knot always and ever ready to swoon and swell in an instant to 10x it's normal size. Sometimes I want to defend my sadness, my vigilance, my watchful eye, my spider sense's humming always as if they were a bullied younger sister who needs my protection.
Geneen Roth in her amazingly insightful book Women, Food & God suggests that you just "put it down" that trunk or battered suitcase of sadness, worry, lovingly stored & packed away feelings not felt or dealt with. Just put them down and walk away. I think to myself are you nuts ? what if I don't want to ? what if I can't ? Everything is going to be all right. what if that's not true ? All the things in my suitcase are things I'm very good at. Practiced and honed skills and abilities.
Eventually we see that it was the investment in the brokenness, the constant effort to fix ourselves, that was the very thing that kept our wholeness at bay. If you think that your job is to fix what is broken, you keep finding more broken places to mend.
Geneen Roth - Women, Food & God
in this perfect moment,
the one that I'm in this very instant
everything really is ... all right.
Gosh, this post really got to me today. I'm dealing with everything you talked about...carrying around the suitcases of fear, sadness, loneliness...a fresh broken heart...or what seems to be constantly fresh, as I DO keep trying to tend to the brokeness, trying to find a way to "mend" it but nothing I do works...not long enough. I'm tired of bandaid fixes. But, I don't know HOW to push past all of that. I'm terribly afraid, but know deep inside I must do it. I just don't know how....let alone doing it by myself. Sigh
ReplyDeleteSusan this is one of your best posts: like Sophia it strikes a chord today, and appreciatively so.
ReplyDeleteYesterday was the first day I can remember without feeling anxious.
Previous posts of yours hit home. I didn't actually know I was in that state until I was free of it yesterday!
We are on school holidays,I had a wonderful day as my daughter received her Masters degree from the Uni, and we celebrated with a close group of her friends that night(yes, I have the social anxiety thing too and I was remarkably free of it!).
Today, it's back to my normal "on alert", and factoring in the moods and needs of others.
I am extremely grateful for yesterday.
Thanks for this post.
Take it from the sender that the intention was indeed to convey that you were loved, and held in thought, and her hope that receiving it would make you feel happy. The doubting voice is best ignored - what does it know, anyway?
ReplyDeleteLove,
You-Know-Who