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Posts Tagged ‘New Year’

One Old Lost Calendar, a poem

Posted in inspiration, tagged , , , , , , on December 29, 2020| 1 Comment »

I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine. (Neil Armstrong)

 I don’t remember when I wrote this poem, but the year 2020 didn’t exist. This year’s events would have belonged to science fiction. Yet, somehow, the poem fits. I pray hope and beauty live in the manure these twelve months have provided. Peace. For all.

ONE OLD LOST CALENDAR

I find an old, unmarked calendar.

Three-hundred-sixty-five blocks of freedom

promised in small pristine white boxes.

Twenty-eight to thirty-one on each page.

It had been a difficult year,

better forgotten in a dusty closet.

And yet, like soil that is no more than

ordinary dirt, the kind that grinds

under the fingernails,

hope and beauty

were planted into the grime.

And their seeds

continue to grow, inventing bizarre

and beautiful surprises.

 

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But I Wanted the Easy Road

Posted in inspiration, positive thinking, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2020| 2 Comments »

Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life. (Shannon L. Alder)

The summer of 1963. I’m at a journalism workshop in Detroit to prepare for a position on my high school magazine. And I have a date. Other pre-seniors, a group of at least six, give advice about makeup.

“More eyebrow pencil. They look pale. Lost.”

A description of how I felt. Strange. I had a date. With a guy I’d just met. Not the love of my life, but someone who would introduce me to a fancy restaurant and frog legs. Yet my memory of the moment says I wasn’t enough.

Today I look in the mirror and see one red, irritated eye. The itching is a unique form of torture and I am grateful for antibiotic drops. Pink eye is temporary. Human frailties are not.

I have survived adolescence by now. However, what is this thing in me that says rest must be limited? Does laundry really need to be done, now? I need to type even when the letters could be more fog than print. I take a break, a short one. Maybe not-good-enough has morphed through the years. Soothed with action.

The new year begins. May I remain open to change, especially if it doesn’t seem easy. Time to focus on the real. And grow inside both joy and turmoil.

 

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