I walked along the windswept beach, while a dense fog
hovered beyond
the breakers, a barrier to this in-between place of water
meeting land, land
meeting water. A fine
mist coated the boulders and trees, made the chilled
air heavy and dull. The cliffs behind me, scarred here, there,
a warning of
their dynamic quest for equilibrium. I was alone and pondering faith,
and stooped to pick up a rock, the size of my fist. It was weighty, solid, grey
granite, fit perfectly in my hand, comfort in my palm. Its smoothness proof
of the tenacity of wave and water. Keep
trying, I read in this gospel etched in stone,
Some things take time,
whispered the waves. Endure.
I watched the waves as
they worked, doing what they were meant to do. I stood, still, in this borderland,
this convergence of worlds, and listened. I held the cool stone, the grey sky melding
with the mist, and thought of the changing lunar face
pulling on this water from
afar, like lost love.
But not until my head was quiet, the static of my thoughts calm -
then I heard them singing, those rocks, still rising and
falling in the surf, their turmoil
a symphony of faith.
Singing, tumbling like joyful pups, falling over themselves again
and again, their essence revealed by the exhilaration of
their existence. I kissed the
stone and left it on the beach, in the arched hollow where
it had been placed by the
force of tides, redeemed, for now - respite among the grains we are slowly becoming.
23 August 2013
08 August 2013
What's Your Crux?
Sometimes, the ideal afternoon reflects a charming Spanish
proverb: How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterwards. I spent quite a few afternoons in this manner
over the summer, relishing a certain degree of laziness which was precisely
what I needed to come to terms with the events of this past winter and to
prepare for the impending school year, which began on Monday. In spite of the losses that have rocked our
community, I feel refreshed and ready for the upcoming challenges, but with my
eyes wide open to the fact that there is no predicting what those challenges
could perhaps entail.
And just as I learned that there is often no predicting who
might be afflicted with cancer, I was reminded that just a few generations ago,
there was no predicting who might be afflicted with polio. On our trip to Maine, we spent a very rainy
morning in New Brunswick, on Campobello Island exploring Franklin Delano
Roosevelt’s summer cottage. This was
where FDR fell ill with polio in 1921 at the age of thirty-nine. Polio affects swiftly, and in FDR’s case it
was only three days from symptoms first appearing to his being paralyzed irreversibly
from the waist down. In just over seventy-two
hours, he went from being a healthy person to an invalid. And while he never recovered fully, he did go
on to become one of America’s most popular presidents during one of the darkest
times in our history, his disability deftly hidden even while his bout with the
disease was well-known.
Flash-forward to this week, when I found myself scrolling
the headlines on the BBC. A story caught
my eye about a man who had spent forty-five years - his entire life,
effectively - in the hospital after contracting polio as an infant. In spite of requiring an artificial
respirator every moment of his life since then, Paulo Henrique Machado has
managed to become a computer animator and to forge deep bonds with the other
polio-afflicted children he grew up with in the hospital in Brazil. One by one those friends succumbed to
infection, until today, only he and his dear friend Eliana Zagui remain. Together they have had many brief adventures
outside of the hospital and are currently collaborating on a film project that tells their story.
This is such a beautiful story and it made me more mindful
of the excuses I make rather than accomplishing what I set out to do. We all make excuses, certainly: I’m too tired. The weather’s bad. There is something more important. It’s so hot.
I don’t have enough time. That
last one’s my crutch, or perhaps my crux.*
As I struggle to add the demands of work back into my life after a relatively lazy summer,
I’m going to try to remember Paulo and Eliana, and their proof that life is
what you make of it, and nothing less and nothing more.
*crux = an essential point requiring resolution
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