we venture out of the mind-boggling absorption of what’s really happening out there every now and then. and sit in the sun. or browse plants and flowers at the nursery. or take to the trail. or pet the dogga.
because we all need a break from it at some point, this devastation that wracks our hearts…just a few tiny moments away from thinking about it.
the rest of life is going on. people are working and sleeping, having babies and leaving this earth, healing and fighting disease with all their might, doing real life. right smack in the middle of horrific – – real life.
and sometimes that is enough.
really.
enough.
the rest of all of it is just too much.
“…well, everybody’s heart needs a holiday some time…”
it snowed last night. there is a dusting on the deck and on the roofline that i can see out the window right now. even a dusting is magical. even a dusting is snow. even, if it were only a dusting, only this, it would be enough.
the snow earlier – in november – didn’t last long but – while it clung to the adirondack chairs – i went out, crunching through it, to take a photograph, to remember it. it was the kind that snowmen are made of. and, even if that were the only snow, only that, it would have been enough.
i am trying to learn the art of even if, enough. for right now. for this moment. for standing in this space, spinning on this earth in this solar system in this galaxy. the next moment is a mystery – on repeat – a measure of blank space, again and again.
you don’t just arrive there, we are not simply maestros of this art. it is – what i am seeing – a process like the tides. a little wave in, a little wave out. a grain of sand in, a grain of sand out. it is not simple but it is…actually.
it is the recognition – when you are feeling in right mind, when you are feeling more balanced, when you are not hijacked by outside influences – of the right now and a nod that even if….it is enough.
in this time, these times, our yearnings are real. and – as our world turns and we approach a time of far greater chaos than we have likely ever known in most of our lives – we can see that the even if, enoughs are going to play a big role in staying grounded.
it is a work in progress, i suppose, for each of us. we – mostly – live in societies where more is more and less is, most definitely, less. we are not typically validated in our less. we are not typically commended for finding value in less.
but it is the gift of the tide and time. you begin to realize that the tiniest pebbles that drop in on our personal shoreline are often the mica of life. you begin to realize that they balance out the grains of sand that are pulled out each time and tide.
and so i, maybe like you – am trying to be satisfied with – at peace with – the even if, enoughs.
even if we don’t have enough time with someone – but we have a tiny bit – it is enough. even if we don’t have enough stuff, newest stuff, trendy stuff – but we have a tiny bit – it is enough. even if we don’t have enough time – but we have a tiny bit – it is enough. even if we don’t have enough snow – but we have a tiny bit – it is enough.
though the even ifs make us – make it all – feel somewhat fragile, the enoughs are a good place to seek, a good place to live.
“but it’s the holidays!” you protest. and yes, it is.
yet – in these days, in this community, this country, this world – there’s more going on than simply jingling bells and twinkling lights, a sleigh of gifts and eight reindeer, manger scenes and menorahs. and even now – in the middle of all of this – even in the middle of festivities – we need to pay attention.
it’s risky to disagree. it’s risky to push back. it’s risky to declare that which has or those whom have wronged you or others. the membrane is thick and unforgiving, even vindictive. it’s risky to break the code of silence.
but it’s necessary.
to speak the crime/the wrong/the slight – the action or inaction – is not a crime, though those within the bonds of the code would want you to believe that. it is either impossible for them to see the forest for the trees or it has come to the time that no longer matters to them. to step out, to speak out, to speak against, to speak for – all are looked upon as deviant when silence is broken. righteous pontificators rail against the sole “deviant” – the one who stops the actual deviance, the one who holds the actual deviants accountable. they gather troops around themselves, searching for – or convincing – others of their sanctimonious correctness. they are invigorated by the quest to maintain the code – no longer merely complicit – instead, enabling – involving themselves in the dirty deeds of the codemakers. their silence is active, perpetuating the wrong. and the circle exacerbates itself – concentrically outward – into an organization, a community, a government, a country, a world. and it is ugly.
for those out there who are questioning and breaking the code of silence, for those who are pushing back against injustice or inequity, for those who are pulling back the curtain exposing, revealing wrongs – whether small or overwhelming, for those who are not fostering complicity or harboring or sustaining wrongfulness, for those who have reached the place of “enough!”, for those holding fast to the values of goodness, for those who are actively pursuing democratic freedoms of choice for all peoples – i hope this season of light would grant unto you courage and fortitude, empowerment in vulnerability, the ability to stand tall and proud, others to stand with you, trust in the process of bushwhacking your way to revealing truth, accountability in the end, recovery and peace. i hope this season of light reminds you of your value. i hope this season will touch you beyond your wildest imagination and that jingling bells and twinkling lights – and all the other trappings of this season – will dull in comparison to the light you have brought in your deviance – breaking the code of silence and bringing forth truth and justice. you are necessary.
“the sun shines not on us but in us. the rivers flow not past, but through us. thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. the trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.” (john muir)
there have been moments – holy and glorious moments – when i remember that i am, yes, one with nature. i am no more or less a part of the whole than the heart-leaf on the side of the trail, no more or less a part of the whole than the rocks on the beach, no more or less a part of the whole than the cloud as it floats by. and i remember that in my tiny-ness – within the vastness – i could just as easily have been the energy of the leaf or the rock or the cloud.
“how will you spend your time?” asked the thru-hiker at the end of the trail. mary oliver asks the same, “what will you do with your one precious life?”
i realize – in these sacred and suspended moments when i can feel the threads of soul connect me to the trees, to the living plants, to the creatures – that i am, perhaps, spending too much time in worry.
enough was a long time ago. enough was after the first mass shooting. “enough” is no longer relevant.
i hardly know what to say. every one of us in this country should be shocked into exhausted, sickened silence and then pushed into action, no longer sloughing off of the actual responsibility to protect the citizens of this land from the barrel of a gun, from the devastation of people’s lives blown apart.
this spacious-skies-amber-waves-of-grain united states is an embarrassment. the freedom to live life – at school, at church, at a concert, at the movies, in the mall, at the club, at the grocery store – the freedom to continue breathing is usurped by powerful money-rich-control-hungry leaders – voted into office, no less – with not even a nod to the sanctity of lives taken at gunpoint.
it is utterly shameful if you are not filled with rage, if you are not horrified with the guns in this land and those who support the exponential growth and prioritizing of their presence and the power they wield. they will utter their passive “heartfelt” “thoughts and prayers” and will soon forget their “outrage”. until the next time.
the cheesecloth sky filtered out most of the sun over the trail through the woods. others had been there before us; the snowmobile track interrupted by the plodding hoofprints of a horse, picking its way through inches of snow. we were next, our boots crunching and breaking through crust the bit of sun had settled on the top of the snow. we saw no one else. we passed by no one else. the quiet was welcome; the quiet was necessary.
in the distant clouds we could see the brush of setting sun. and the lyrics, “…right now it seems to be more than enough to just be here today, and i don’t know what the future is holdin’ in store. i don’t know where i’m goin’, i’m not sure where i’ve been. there’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me. my life is worth the livin’, i don’t need to see the end…” (sweet surrender, john denver)
we were awake in the middle of the night. this is more usual than unusual these days.
we talked about the elongated hexagon of life. of the start. of sweet babies lilah and jaxon and their beginnings – their exponential learning day by day, their attaching to people, to things, to understanding. the billowing ever-widening incandescent rainbow bubble of possibility that surrounds them as they grow, as they become.
we talked about the elongated hexagon of life. of the end. of the narrowing down of experiences, the detaching, the ever-decreasing possibilities of dearest columbus, in the journey that minds take on roads of dementia.
we talked about the elongated hexagon of life. of the middle. of the time in the center. of our lives. “more than enough…just to be here today…more than enough…”
the trail is familiar; the trail is different every day we take it. we trace deertracks with mittened hands and build snowmen and snowhearts with the powdery snow in the shade of the trail.
we don’t know where we’re going. we can’t see the end. we are smack dab in the middle. and, on this bitter cold day in muted woods under a cottage cheese sky in silence, that needs to be enough.
on the back of the vehicle’s window we just passed the other day there was this sticker: “you can give peace a chance. i’ll cover you if it dosen’t {sic} work out.”
the mantra “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” screamed its head off at me as i read this with distress. but there’s this:
mass shootings in public schools, killing people
mass shootings at colleges, killing people
mass shootings at concerts, killing people
mass shootings at nightclubs, killing people
mass shootings at places of worship, killing people
mass shootings at movie theatres, killing people
mass shootings at malls, killing people
mass shootings at stores, killing people
mass shootings at restaurants, killing people
mass shootings at bases, killing people
mass shootings at post offices, killing people
enough.
peace deserves a chance. the gun-law-less-ness-populace has had its chance. it has failed miserably. it is still failing. it is breaking hearts and lives left and right. it is placing the value of life below the value of a semiautomatic weapon. what have we come to? what horror must happen before legislation is put into place that considers the actual lack of need, the lack of appropriateness, the sheer lack of respect for human life for these weapons of mass destruction to be removed from day-to-day life?
“guns don’t kill people. people do.” yes, people pull the trigger. yet, without guns, what would those trigger-hungry people do? “pew, pew, pew, pew,” they would yell out while running with their pointer finger aimed at the ‘enemy’.
“you would cry too if it happened to you, ” my wise friend jotted the lyrics of this song to me. in this country of little-to-no-community-empathy, she was making reference of these lyrics to the pandemic. yet, they apply to any despicably irresponsible act by leadership – the lack of leadership for the covid-19 pandemic, the lack of leadership for gun control, for banning assault weapons, the lack of leadership for racial equality and addressing unrest, the lack of leadership for social justice and safety of all peoples, the revoltingly vigorous encouragement of a society to pine for more of the second amendment.
it only took new zealand six days in 2019 to announce a new national gun policy. weapons of mass destruction (all military-style semiautomatic weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines and modification parts to morph guns into semiautomatic status) were banned merely six days after a mass shooting. it is assumed that gun ownership is a privilege there, not a right. gun homicides there have been in the single digits, with the highest number of 11.
and the united states of america?
enough.
i might add: anyone who purchases a sticker announcing their dismissal of peace as an option should spend a little more time reading it. “dosen’t” is spelled wrong. perhaps that is one of the problems. little to no thought, little to no investment in critical thinking. little to no conversation or use of intellect. no refrainment of an overabundance of anger and reactionism. just a blunt declaration of violence, a creed to evil.
reverse threading 