Counting Gifts
She Will Not Be Quiet: A (mostly unedited) daily writing practice
Jotting from my journal…. Day #58 of daily writing/sharing
Counting Gifts
The grass is so still so green, shimmering with morning dew, gray squirrels are little acrobats hanging upside down from the bird feeders, mimicking the way the world feels these days. The neighbor whose wife just died pauses at the poetry stand in my front yard. I say a silent prayer for him. The coffee tastes especially good. A woman on her front porch with her head to the sky catching each warm ray, pen to the page catching words as they come, allowing sunlight to soften the sorrow stored in these cells, saying no to the little soldiers inside that insist I should do something productive. And what could be more productive than pausing to listen to this spring morning? A morning spent breathing in the scent of all of this blossoming— each breath a savored gift. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. For today—this. A woman on her front porch counting gift after gift after gift.
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"pen to the page catching words as they come, allowing
sunlight to soften the sorrow stored in these cells, saying no
to the little soldiers inside that insist I should
do something productive."
I love these lines so much, Julia--the softness of writing, of paying attention. This whole poem beautifully renders this softness.
Those little soldiers inside can be so insistent. I have been thinking a lot about productivity lately and remembering these lines I wrote in my journal a few years ago:
"I wonder what would need to break open inside of us
for us to begin to take apart
the home we have built inside productivity–
to see that this is the home the world has handed us–
and to hand it back, saying
this body is my home,
and I will decide what is welcome here."