Sort of a Poem: I Carry the Grief in my Bones

I carry the grief in my bones.
Or in the stuff of life that brings together my body and mind.
In the involuntary part of being like breathing or heart beating or blinking or inhaling.
I don’t notice my heart or even may breathing until I run up the stairs too fast and I’m aware of the beat or think about pacing the exhale with the inhale.

I carry the grief there.
Where it only occasionally intrudes.
Where I don’t notice it.
But my body knows.
When the memory stirs somewhere deep and lost in my mind and my body sends the reminders before my spirit even knows.
I’m tired.
My sleep is restless.
My thoughts scattered, as if crowded by some unknown uncertainty or wrestling to be mastered.
A sadness manifested in tangible ways – if only designed to slow me down.
To tug at me to remember.
That the body knows.
And rest is ok. Patience is ok.
Listening is ok. Taking the time is ok.
The time to experience my own thoughts and unknowns.
And to heal bit by bit.
I carry the grief in my bones.

morning letters . 010516

010516

Today I’m beginning my first work week of the new year! Yesterday capped off our two-week holiday vacation with family and togetherness, and the children’s first day back to school is definitely bittersweet. We’ve enjoyed a wonderful and sometimes challenging holiday season with many moments of joy with my babies, as well as a few moments of grief and melancholy. I don’t know where that comes from or why I still experience it, but I’ve learned to accept the feelings my spirit seems to need and allow  myself the grace to live in each moment as part of our on-going process.

My lettering practice is the start of a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem I read today. It’s serving as a great reminder to savor each moment and each day. To embrace it for whatever it brings and to leave it fully spent. A very apt goal as I start 2016.

Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.

ralph waldo emerson