Don’t you love how when you’re really tired, that’s when you slam your hand in the car door, or trip and bruise your knees (or break a bone), or forget to make that important phone call, or burst into tears when your coffee cup dances off the table and smashes on the floor—
Or when you roll over onto your glasses (glasses which you virtually NEVER take off), distorting and cracking the frame beyond repair. As I did last night.
Every year the days of spring and early summer take me by surprise. I imagine they will be soft and delicate like the earliest spring blossoms, but instead they abound with splashy color– end of school celebrations and graduations, weddings, outdoor social events, and frenetic gardening… in addition to all the usual activities of daily life. While the flowers simply bask and stretch out luxuriantly in the warm sun, we humans run around like ants, as if the sun were a stick poking into our hill.
I’ve also had travels, funerals and grief over world events, so I am too tired right now to write many more words. I hope you are not so tired.
I intend to take the advice of this poem, The Word, by Tony Hoagland to heart, and perhaps you need it too:
Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between “green thread”
and “broccoli” you find
that you have penciled “sunlight.”
Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend
and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning — to cheer you up,
and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,
that also needs accomplishing
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds
of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder
or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue
but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom
still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,
– to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.
Thanks for this, Anne. I have been feeling the same way – way too much going on. It feels like the world is going crazy, too.
I hope you can make time to “sit out in the sun and listen,” then, as Hoagland recommends. The weather sure is perfect for it!
Just need to take time to soak up the sunlight, that’s what I will do. Thanks
Today is a great day for it!
Agreed, it’s great out here🌞
Love your thoughts, and the poem put a smile on my face, and sunshine in my heart !
Glad you found it useful Mary. And thank you for passing it on to others.
Thank you for your lovely thoughts, sunshine for my soul.
I’m so glad Beverly!
Thank you Anne, this is good to remember today.
It’s so easy to forget, isn’t it?