Independent Living
“If we could light up the room with pain, / we’d be such a glorious fire.” (~Ada Limon, "Bright Dead Things")
“I live in my house as I live inside my skin: I know more beautiful, more ample, more sturdy and more picturesque skins: but it would seem to me unnatural to exchange them for mine.”
~ Primo Levi
(All grammatical pauses are intentional)
Can writing heal?
Let’s put it to a test.
When my heart aches
When my insides are close to bursting
When my present despair is only another way-stop on a worming river of aches
Where would I seek relief?
Some say in in a god of your understanding
Others wink and beckon to sprint into a darkened alley of perilous addictions
And there are many who say any exercise that releases endorphins will boost good feelings, the body’s natural neurotransmitters of joy.
All true, I’m sure.
Standing ( sitting in my case) still and let minutes amble by while I center on things to be grateful for, shifts my perspective just so.
To be grateful is to want to live
To be grateful is to know that because I still feel the pain of living, I am alive
To be grateful today requires me to look at my feet, where I stand, here and now. And then
Do the counting.
Despite the hatred and the bellicose braying
Of runtish men and women
and their jerkwater brains.
Grateful for the sun
Visible through the window slats, patches of green leaves and red maple.
Grateful for my grandkids who have years of laughter and joy ahead of them.
Grateful that I have learned to cope with pain without hammer blows to my soul.
Grateful for the acceptance of the Augean present.
(All Photographs are Courtesy of the Author. All Rights Reserved)
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Friday, August 15.
I know, I know, it’s India’s Independence Day . . . but this year, it’s also the day that I’m hosting a reading of part of my new collection of essays and inviting all of you to the Q&A.
Moderator: Elizabeth Merrick, Poet & Writer, Somerville, MA.
That’s in Somerville, MA, my hometown.
