September | 2017 | Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray)

This poem is on my mind, especially the opening and closing lines.

ADRIFT
by Mark Nepo

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
This is how the heart makes a duet of
wonder and grief. The light spraying
through the lace of the fern is as delicate
as the fibers of memory forming their web
around the knot in my throat. The breeze
makes the birds move from branch to branch
as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost
in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh
of the next stranger. In the very center, under
it all, what we have that no one can take
away and all that we’ve lost face each other.
It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured
by a holiness that exists inside everything.
I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

1. Farmer’s market. This was the haul from last week. It just makes me really happy to buy directly from who made or grew it. I also love the ritual of going downtown early in the morning at the beginning of the weekend and walking around.

2. Getting help with a nasty nest of yellow jackets. I find no joy in killing anything, and yet, once these mean little dudes (did you know they have TEETH, and they can chew through concrete?!) got inside our house (the crawlspace), it became them or us. I was really happy to find someone who not only could take care of it, but was a decent human being and made me feel better about the whole thing.

3. Practice. When it’s hard to breathe because I’m so anxious and heartbroken, this is always a soft place to land.

4. Morning walks. I love where I live so much — the access to green space and trails, the sky and the water.

5. My tiny family. It can be hard to manage everyone’s health and happiness (including my own), but the pay off is so worth it. And p.s. Eric takes such good care of all of us.

Bonus joy: Wild Writing, water aerobics, my not new anymore but still feels new to me car, a warm shower and a clean towel, a cold glass of clean water, watermelon, fresh corn, strawberries, remembering who I am, good TV (I’m watching The Sinner and it is the guiltiest pleasure, also One Mississippi and Better Things are back), good books (I’m finishing up Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates), clean sheets, cooler weather.