It's the end of another year and I find myself as reflective as ever, hours spiraling away like cottony dandelion heads blown by breezes far too warm for any self-respecting December afternoon in Kansas.
Nothing and I mean nothing feels real today.
I could chronicle in grisly and gothic detail the year that ends tonight, I could recount months spent coming to terms with myself as a divorced woman, as a woman who experienced a transformative return to faith, a woman who loved a man so desperately she nearly lost her mind when he disappeared, a woman who had to hunt through the dark, cold and alone and terrified, to find the only light she could ever actually be guided by lived and lives inside her own heart. I could tell all those stories, but none of them alone says what I need to say today.
I keep wondering, would it be better if I'd made this choice instead of that one, if I'd said no instead of yes, if I'd spoken instead of stayed silent, sung instead of whispered...in the end, though, a year is a drop in the path of a human life, not even enough of a rock to impede your path unless you let it. I am choosing, today, to walk past this last year, to give it back to the earth, to say no thank you and to happily, and hopefully, accept the next stretch of time as one that will be better. I deserve it. You deserve it. We deserve it.
1957, Milo Greene
Showing posts with label Choice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Choice. Show all posts
31 December 2011
16 October 2011
Cycles
As I pulled into my driveway this morning after running errands, I saw two impatiens blossoms, white and open as full as any jazz trumpet, waving in the morning breeze to greet me. Add these gracious hosts to the still vibrant lilac blooms on the butterfly bush by my back gate and the lurid pink mouths of the sweetheart roses near the door, and no one would believe we were midway through October.
These flowers and their extravagant shocks of color woke me up this morning to an idea that's been tickling at my brainstem for awhile but wouldn't quite come into focus until now. I've been thinking so much about timing lately, about seasons, about the cycles we follow by rote, the ones we follow blindly, the one we adhere to without even realizing they exist, and the ways those cycle dictate a life to us that may not be the one that is most authentic to us as individuals.
Katherine Anne Porter wrote: “There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.”
If she is right--and my life over the last couple of years certainly dictates that she is--and we are all living lives of almost pure chaos, then our feigning rightness, order, and certainty must be a huge part of what contributes to humankind's general unhappiness.
I have many friends in the throes of crisis today, personal, professional, internal, external, tangible and intangible, and at the heart of all of that suffering--and at the heart of my own--lies an overwhelming need to do what we all feel we "should" as opposed to doing what we want. I keep wondering what it is that has convinced us all that we don't deserve the joyous lives we envision for ourselves, what keeps us running around the track, chasing a mechanical bunny that never slows down, that always eludes us, that never ever ever satisfies.
And then, I think about my flowers. The rose and butterfly bushes are perennial, meant to return each year, but they are both far past their blooming season, and by all practical calculation the impatiens, an annual flower I plant each spring because their bobbing blooms always seem like nature nodding yes to me whenever I want to scream no, should really be dead by now. But they're not. These flowers aren't adhering to any cycle that seeks to see them wilt, die out, shrivel, or go underground for another year. These flowers are blooming--blooming!--right here by my door, reminding me that the only limits to my own blossoming are the ones I set for myself.
Today, I choose color and life and beauty, joy and brightness and blooming. I hope you, dear reader, do the same.
These flowers and their extravagant shocks of color woke me up this morning to an idea that's been tickling at my brainstem for awhile but wouldn't quite come into focus until now. I've been thinking so much about timing lately, about seasons, about the cycles we follow by rote, the ones we follow blindly, the one we adhere to without even realizing they exist, and the ways those cycle dictate a life to us that may not be the one that is most authentic to us as individuals.
Katherine Anne Porter wrote: “There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.”
If she is right--and my life over the last couple of years certainly dictates that she is--and we are all living lives of almost pure chaos, then our feigning rightness, order, and certainty must be a huge part of what contributes to humankind's general unhappiness.
I have many friends in the throes of crisis today, personal, professional, internal, external, tangible and intangible, and at the heart of all of that suffering--and at the heart of my own--lies an overwhelming need to do what we all feel we "should" as opposed to doing what we want. I keep wondering what it is that has convinced us all that we don't deserve the joyous lives we envision for ourselves, what keeps us running around the track, chasing a mechanical bunny that never slows down, that always eludes us, that never ever ever satisfies.
And then, I think about my flowers. The rose and butterfly bushes are perennial, meant to return each year, but they are both far past their blooming season, and by all practical calculation the impatiens, an annual flower I plant each spring because their bobbing blooms always seem like nature nodding yes to me whenever I want to scream no, should really be dead by now. But they're not. These flowers aren't adhering to any cycle that seeks to see them wilt, die out, shrivel, or go underground for another year. These flowers are blooming--blooming!--right here by my door, reminding me that the only limits to my own blossoming are the ones I set for myself.
Today, I choose color and life and beauty, joy and brightness and blooming. I hope you, dear reader, do the same.
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