yesterday on the phone with my friend jamie, while engaging in one of our usual meaning-of-life-weight-of-the-universe conversations, I said, "life is just a series of days. are we enjoying each one?" she told me to write it down, maybe even share it. this is me writing it down. this is me sharing it.
and it's true, life in all the things it is, is just a series of days. and so I ask myself, am I doing my part to enjoy each one? and yes, there it is, the cliché that can only be so because it is dripping with pertinence, with truth and necessity. (how strange that we dismiss something because it is said too much-- perhaps it is said with frequency for a reason?!) it is when I forget the importance of taking it day by day, step by step (ooh baby), that I start to suffer. it is when I blow it all up into this grotesque form, too large to face, too heavy to carry, that I feel like I can't "take it". life is so many things we can't know or understand. why spend all our glorious time here floating in the abyss when we could be splashing in the waves-- the place where the infinite meets land? sometimes it feels right to float, but is it also good to have something solid beneath your feet. and we're back where we (or at least I) started, keeping it simple (another invaluable "cliché") . taking a walk, being glad you are able. enjoying the sky in all its endless incarnations (it never fails to amaze me, a sky! above my head!), eating a piece of fruit that came from a tree, I repeat, eating a sweet and delicious treat that grows on trees! (how have we ceased to marvel at such things?!), talking to someone, perhaps familiar or strange, showing them the kindness that is always coursing through your heart.
I have been nervous lately, people seem tense, waiting to burst, to yell or shoot someone in the face. I want the world to sing the lullaby that always hums in the quiet spaces-- the spaces in between the wanting and the having. I want to sing it for others, when they have lost the ability to hear it themselves, when it seems the world has become a cruel place designed for their personal torment. I know how it feels to see it that way. I also know what it feels like to be completely and utterly helpless to the wonder that is getting to be here. (said slowly) we...get...to...be...here! why? we don't know. but, we are here! and while we are here, we get days to play with. we get measurements of time to spend growing or shrinking as much as we please (or don't please). we get seasons to change and challenge the nature of what is possible. we have so much and never enough. we get to ask, and not know the answer. yes, that seems like a lot for a human to handle, but we've been handling it for so long and despite how awful the news reports are, I would like to believe that we are more good than evil, that we hope more than we despair, that we are more interested in sharing than possessing. I choose to believe that, because that's the world I want to live in. as long as I am here, I want to try my hardest to enjoy it.
