Lunch time again.
The Mississippi, 1/2 part ice and 1/2 half part fluid, quietly shuffles its frozen cargo along. The sun highlights the contrast of the dark waters to the snowy ice, and my eyes hurt from gazing too long.
What is it about this window, this view, that makes me want to stop and assess my place in life? Already I think of the coming year . . . .
A few simple goals, really: more new music in my life--more vegetables and exercise, too. Otherwise, I feel enormously thankful for my husband and the friends we have, for our families, our home, and all the goodness Minneapolis and St. Paul offers us on a daily basis. To finally feel this sense of belonging--how divine!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Alas, the 1st of December.
I'm on my lunch, taking in the beauty of the Mississippi . . . .
For a long time I considered myself a lake girl. Give me an enclosed body of water I can swim and ski in and I'm quite content. Happy, even. But as I grow older, the lull and meandering way of a river has been nagging at my mind, suggesting I ponder it and let it teach me things about life.
Consider the terrain it covers, widening or narrowing respectively, and sometimes making its own journey despite what the world offers it. Sometimes swollen, somtimes skinny, it is always what it is . . .going where it goes.
For a long time I considered myself a lake girl. Give me an enclosed body of water I can swim and ski in and I'm quite content. Happy, even. But as I grow older, the lull and meandering way of a river has been nagging at my mind, suggesting I ponder it and let it teach me things about life.
Consider the terrain it covers, widening or narrowing respectively, and sometimes making its own journey despite what the world offers it. Sometimes swollen, somtimes skinny, it is always what it is . . .going where it goes.
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Swan, by Mary Oliver
Did you too see it, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air-
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music-like the rain pelting the trees-like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds-
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air-
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music-like the rain pelting the trees-like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds-
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
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