At The Window With Mary Oliver

What is it about this place?

When I sit in the chair next to the large, lone window of  my tiny bedroom, I look out and feel at peace.  I glance down at my journal and see Annie Dillard’s words hastily scribbled on the cover.

We wake, if ever at all, to mystery.

And right here, in this moment, I believe this is true.  Really believe it.

So much will have to be left undone and unsaid.  In the end it won’t be about my grade on the test, but about my open heart along the way.

Yes.   I know this.

But when I am back home and in my every day space.   I doubt my doubting.  I fear the uncertainties.

Are they ok?  Do they mean failure? Am I letting someone down?  Am I ruining this perfect will or plan?

They roll like ocean waves beneath my breastbone.  That is where the tension always seizes me-right in the chest.

Why can’t I just remind myself that it isn’t about getting all the questions right?  I think that I am fully deprogrammed now, but I keep finding more cobwebbs in the corners.

I text my sister in a complete panic- Do you believe in God?  Weird question, I know.  Be honest with me!

I just want to hear someone else say it.  Not really.   Well, yes.  Just not how I used to.  I want someone who I know and love to tell me that they wonder too.  Maybe it is their words that can save me?

Stop, Lisa, I think.  Let her life be hers and yours be yours.  It will all be ok.

  Breathe.   

People say, “I just don’t know what people would do without God?  How do they live each day without Him?”

I think, well, they just do.   And still, they  love well.

That’s what I want.  I want to love well.

So, in this moment and at this window, the mystery sinks deep into the chair with me. My questions rest comfortably over my shoulders like a warm blanket.

  And while I am here, they are all  most welcome to stay .  Wiith  ease,  they linger.

Mary Oliver joins me in this book upon my lap, offering this poem- just for me.

Who Said This?

Something whispered something

that was not even a word.

It was more like a silence that was understandable.

i was standing

at the edge of the pond.

Nothing living, what we call living,

was in sight.

And yet, the voice entered me,

my body-life,

with so much happiness.

And there was nothing here

but the water,

the sky,

the grass.

(Taken from her book, Red Bird.)

If you love Mary Oliver like I do, check this out immediately.  It’s a delight.

http://www.onbeing.org/program/mary-oliver-listening-to-the-world/7267

Poem by Rumi