Out of the writing loop four months –well not completely, just no blog.
Amazing how much writing one does just as a matter of course with emails, text messages, social media. It all adds up, even allows the possibility for one’s heart to spill out in little puddle syllables. Not as satisfying as encasing cogitations in crafted metaphors or an eruption of syntactical phrases flung into verse. Nonetheless, a continuation of the diary of one’s life –snapshots, time ticks, intermission.
Four months. During that time the family went camping for four days on the coast, my youngest granddaughter started high school, a dear friend and her husband celebrated their 30th Anniversary –did you know that the OM symbol forms a lovely 30?
My oldest daughter had surgery, my brother turned 70, another dear friend who will turn 93 this December fell and broke her femur. And besides my regular work schedule I read several books, caught up on a few movies, continued to fall in love with birdsong, ocean surf, evening skies, my grand-babies –highlights on a long joie-de-vie list. I’ve spent time in CiCi’s Garden enjoying its persistent, simple loveliness, this playground/park-like panacea for my beloved cat sentenced to indoor life for her lack of claws.
Though content, I’ve been restless –alarmed by the political scene with all its ugly verbiage, haunted by the inequality and denigration suffered by women globally, sickened by the blatant disregard for human life in too many not-so-faraway places. Because, yes, I take it personally.
I’m offended that politicians assume nasty rhetoric will convince me their position is correct. I’m angry that so many men think religion gives them status above women (along with the right to dominate if not actually maim or kill them). I’m frightened not just by the violence in the Middle East or by atrocities done just south-of-the border. I’m worried by the fact that more and more of US (U.S.A.) are picking up guns and shooting family members, former employers, someone in a car that cut in front of us.
There’s nowhere to run, no place to hide, no way to fix things. So it comes down to what it has always come down to. We can choose to rise above the negative, the hurtful and, more and more, the dangerously hypercritical attitudes that are plaguing and polarizing our nation. In our own being, our own circle of influence, we can decide who we are and how we will interact with others, especially those closest to us, understanding that what we want and need in life does not have to look exactly like what we’ve always envisioned –that something better and more satisfying can exist if we’re not too rigid in our thinking.
I’m feeling again a poem I wrote years ago called The Way of the Eagle:
Have you ever seen an eagle,
Attacked by birds of prey—
With wings all hurt and bleeding
Trying in the air to stay?
Its victory’s not in battling
For then can foes do harm—
Instead it flies still higher
Where other birds disarm.
Yes, eagles soar and spiral
Where other birds cannot—
When peril would assail them
More altitude is sought!
With these words I will pick up where I left off four months ago in July when I wrote about an intersection of providence with happenstance (What if…). Stay tuned.
