I can't sleep…
…Take a shower, wash off the day.
Drink a glass of water.
Make the room dark.
Lie down and close your eyes.
Notice the silence.
Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting.
You made it, after all. You made it, another day.
And you can make it one more.
You’re doing just fine.
I’m doing just fine.
~ Charlotte Eriksson, The Glass Child
Credits: Photo: The Guardian. Poem Source: Schonwieder
The email message arrived a few days ago. The sender and the location were all unidentifiable. Yet, the message was deeply personal. I read it in the silence of the early morning hours, both hands resting on top of the desk, my breath slowing as my eyes worked down the page.
“I’ve been following your blog since early 2013. After a series of your “life is a miracle” shares, I felt I needed to reach out. While our core beings are quite similar in that our hearts’ beat, our body temperatures hover in comparable ranges, and our bodies crave food and water, many of us depart from here in our day-to-day existences…
If I’m sitting and looking out from your perch, I would enjoy the view. Married, family, job. Fridge full of food. A warm house for shelter. Good health. A community of Followers and bloggers to banter with and share inspirations…
Kierkegaard would say that the yardstick for a human being is how long and to what degree he can bear to be alone. I continue to be tested by this yardstick. I’m quite alone. My effectiveness in bearing it? Let’s say it’s day-to-day, and I’m doing so without the benefit of your accoutrements. Yet, I find my peace, and I accept my position in this Life…swallowing hard on my down days.
Look around. I mean really look around and take stock of your life. All of this can change. It can change at any moment. And it can turn very badly. It did for me… Be grateful Now for your blessings as you have many.
[NO CLOSING SIGNATURE OR SALUATION]
Friend, if I can take the liberty of calling you that, you’ve left me Still and without many words, and I’m thankful for your message. Where ever you are and who ever you may be, on this Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., may you find nourishment, may you have shelter and warmth, and may you be surrounded by the love of family and friends.
Photograph Source: Murrskeez
The human heart beats
approximately 4,000 times per hour
and each pulse, each throb, each palpitation
is a trophy engraved with the words
“you are still alive.”
You are still alive.
Act like it.
~ Rudy Francisco
Do you know how it is
when one wakes at night suddenly
and asks, listening to the pounding heart:
what more do you want,
insatiable?
— Czeslaw Milosz, from Farewell
Credits: Poem – Thank you Schonweider. Photograph: Lost in Vogue
it may take years, Dr. Ming whispers,
to wash them out,
telling me to breathe deep, to breathe
hard,
the body is nothing but a map of the
heart.
—Len Roberts, closing lines to “Acupuncture and Cleansing at Forty-Eight.”
“On his own at sixteen after being raised by an alcoholic father and an abusive mother, Len Roberts is best known for poems of stark imagery that concentrate on his progress in life and how he has come to an acceptance of life’s flux.”
Notes/Credits: