Noticing...

A long, difficult week has come to a close. There has been much to process, to ponder and to pray about. Children who are now men with children of their own, people from the past who we have not seen for years, both friends and family, new family members met. Information exchanged, sadness about how we only see each other at funerals. Suggestions on how to change that ...but I fear we will not, we will probably in most cases carry on with our lives.

I am very tired, weary even...but still much to do, much I want to do, and will do. Maybe that is what makes all the difference. Not to sit in sadness but rather to put it in a sack and bring it with us if need be, but to 'carry on'. Very important to keep moving through life, one foot in front of the other. Birthdays, Water Fires, studying, Grandson headed back Tuesday to base after his leave before deployment in August to Iraq



...as I said much to pray about, much to do these next few days and always writing in my journal...thoughts, some flower petals, and an obituary, all pieces of one's day are entered. Even my empty loom is glanced at, longed for...thinking it would be nice to sit and weave and start up a rhythm to life again. Maybe pull out my paints, wet my brush...find those parts of me that have been shelved for a variety of reasons. Not a good sign when one's paints and brushes must be 'pulled out'. They should have been out. But I am feeling like I want to do these things, so all is not lost.

I turned to Mary Oliver this morning and found this poem from out of her book, Thirst. I think it speaks well to where I am this morning.

Heavy

That time I thought I could not
go any closer to grief without dieing

I went closer, and I did not die.
Surely God had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was no where to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it-
books, bricks, grief-
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes,now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled-
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love to which there is no reply?

-Mary Oliver



So carry on today and have a wonderful day of noticing and admiring...I am looking forward to my day of noticing and smiling and sighing with gratitude that I am here to admire.
Thanks for reading