Tag: acceptance

Riding Metro-North. With Missionary Man.

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What does it take to sit? No, I mean Sit. Not sit with your iPhone. Or sit with your iPad.  Or sit with your book. Or sit with your paper.

Just Sit.

He was in the window seat in a three seater. I took the aisle. The middle seat was empty.

It’s a one hour ride on the third train of the morning, the 5:56 Metro North to Grand Central, an Express.

His hands rested on his lap. There was nothing particularly distinguishing. Black loafers. Smart black coat. Black slacks. Thin brown leather case, comfortably worn.

He would occasionally glance out the window. And then return, looking straight ahead.

Man at Peace, of normal height and weight, casting a mountain of a shadow.

My hands would not, could not reach for my earbuds. The iPhone heavy, an anvil. My case, stuffed with other electronics and power cords, and papers, a barrel under arm.

I’m restless, fidgety, and shift in my seat — left, right, and back again. And do over. And over. And over.

I want to be that. Him. Continue reading “Riding Metro-North. With Missionary Man.” →

Saturday Morning

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Do your work, I tell myself. And after? Find a patch of lawn and sit down and hug your knees to your chest and let everything you’ve ever been told and everything you’ve ever seen mingle together in a show just for you, your own eye-popping pageant of existence, your own twelve-thousand-line epic poem. The tickle of the grass on your thighs, the sky moving over you, sunless or blue, echoes from a homily or a wedding toast or a letter your grandmother sent. Remember something good, a sunburn you liked the feeling of, a plate of homemade pasta. Do your work, Kelly. Then lean back. Rest from the striving to reduce.

~ Kelly Corrigan, Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I’m Learning to Say (January 9, 2018)

Photo: poppins-me

Resolutions. Day 1.

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Today I want
to resolve nothing.

I only want to walk
a little longer in the cold…

– Kim Addonizio, from “New Year’s Day” in Tell Me

Notes:

  • Inspired by Lucille Clifton, “I am running into a new year” (via Read a Little Poetry): i am running into a new year / and the old years blow back / like a wind / that i catch in my hair / like strong fingers like / all my old promises and / it will be hard to let go / of what i said to myself / about myself…
  • Poem Source – Memory’s Landscape.
  • Photo: Frozen Lake Tremblant in the Laurentides region of Quebec. Photo by Timothy A. Clary, Agence France, wsj.com December 24, 2017)

It’s been a long day

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In the darkness he was looking sideways at me. I said nothing for a moment; there had seemed to be some special emphasis on the last sentence.

‘Is this also what you meant by being psychic?’ ‘

It is what I mean by hazard. There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will be. You are too young to know this. You are still becoming. Not being.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Not perhaps. For certain.’

‘What happens if one doesn’t recognize the… point of fulcrum?’ …

‘You will be like the many. Only the few recognize this moment. And act on it.’

‘The elect?’

‘The elect.’

~ John Fowles, The Magus

Notes:

Saturday Morning

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It’s a gift, this cloudless … morning
warm enough to walk without a jacket
along your favorite path. The rhythmic shushing
of your feet through fallen leaves should be
enough to quiet the mind…

The rising wind pulls you out of it,
and you look up to see a cloud of leaves
wheeling in sunlight, flickering against the blue
and lifting above the treetops, as if the whole day
were sighing, Let it go, let it go,
for this moment at least, let it all go.

~ Jeffrey Harrison, from Enough

 

Notes: Poem from Poets.org.  Photo: niaz uddin (Eastern Sierra Mountains)