Time, as slippery and tangible
as ever continues to roll on and brings a little celebration, some reflection, a bit of poetry, and a story I can't help but recommend.
Shall we?
1.
32 years after "Bless you."
We still surprise and disappoint each other
We laugh often and sometimes cry
We are not always on the same side of things but always holding each other's heart
Sweat pants, sick nights, grumpy outbursts, grounding hugs, inside jokes, sharing the
last cookie
He takes out the trash and removes the spiders, I fill the spice jars and pay the health insurance
A rhythm of caring that only love can sustain.
2.
If you have been around my world for a while you have probably heard that my husband and I met in a bookstore where his first words to me were "Bless you" after I sneezed. It will be 32 years later tomorrow.
My life was tenuous and messy back then. I was not ideal girlfriend material and
yet, something enduring and wonderful was able to grow. Life doesn't wait for you to be ready. It requires you to notice the blessings and say yes anyway.
Blessings are like the flowers that grow up through the sidewalk. Easy to overlook, but they are tenacious and if allowed to grow will break apart the most cemented life.
3.
Spring allergies are causing me puffy and painfully itchy eyes.
I am left tired and look like I've been crying for days. Am I wondering if I am actually tired or if it because my eyes are. It brings to mind one of my favorite poems by David Whyte which always brings me deep solace in
the hard moments of living.
Darkness
When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.
Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or
anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.
What brings you alive? Let this be the sacred center of your heart.
4.
Ok, so my puffy eyes are not
just puffy from allergies.
It has a been a few weeks since I finished this and I still cry when I think of the beauty held in this story. One of the best, most heartfelt storytelling pieces of entertainment art I have experienced. A story of mothers and daughters, enduring love, sacrifice, resilience, what the heart of love is and does, and how life is a series of moments inside a changing world
that is not always kind but always moves us forward.
Don't let the fact that it is a kdrama stop you from watching. Use the dubbed version if you must, but let your heart be moved by the tenacity of love and the resilience of hope.
5.
A blessing for your week:
(The Illustrated Herbiary by Maya Toll, art by Kate O'Hara)
As lavender steps forward for the second week, may the strength of your heart create gentleness and calm in this chaotic world.
