Assorted Pennies--a footnote

Pennies.  

The weekend has been full of them, like the tulips I cut from our garden and the wee swiss chard plants I eased into the dark soil under a steady drizzle.

It seems as if two weeks of dreary rain has descended upon us, and now the glory of Friday's sunshine is a mere memory.
--
 That Friday morning, in the silence that followed the whirlwind of girls leaving for school, I made a thankful list:

"Why is the sky blue?"  Elspeth had asked that morning as we dressed (crammed into my room since nobody likes to be alone), and suddenly I realized I didn't know.  What a simple question.  How many things I do not know!

Bea looked it up on my phone and began reporting in her somewhat halting, expressive reading voice:  "Shorter-wavelength blue light. . . ."  and then, perhaps because none of us really understood, she ran down to the kitchen and cued up the jazz song, "Blue Skies. . . ."

And all that day the skies were indeed blue, and on my walk I chatted with my neighbor about politics and our shared hopes for more women in leadership.  She told me about her female priest she calls "Mother" and I spoke of my hopes for the upcoming generation of strong young women.

Then I wrote and later I drove to the school in almost 70-degree weather to watch Beatrix run around the track and she was full of life and stinky and growing up.

So many pennies today lie in my palm, I wrote from the kitchen table that afternoon.  Now the dog lies in the sun, eyes shut in complete contentment.  Blossoms drift down from the cherry tree and the wind chimes sing.

I thought too that day of my aunt, whose life has been full of unimaginable trials lately, how last week she called my mother full of laughter and gratitude.  In her poverty of circumstances, she has not forgotten to see the Beauty and Grace lying at her feet, and her soul is full of gifts.

I recently listened to a song on the top-40 or whatever station it is the girls have preset my radio.  "I need some good news, baby.  Feels like the world's gone crazy."  I looked up the song and it's by Ocean Park--not the sort of music I generally choose, but the lyrics of this one caught me.  Give me some good news.  I resonated.  I love good news.  It's my fave, as Merry would jokingly say.

Someone told me recently that visiting my blog is like finding comfort, a warm place.  Shortly after that, someone else told me that I seem to like that kind of thing--comforting, warm things, that is.  And I do.  I still remember one of my peers in a college writing class, saying rather bitterly during a workshop, "Well, I'm sure we'd all to write about happy things like Kim Long does, but life isn't like that for most of us."  I've thought about that since.  In my essay I'd just read out loud, I hadn't meant to be unrealistically blissful or ignore pain.  Really, it's a matter of personality mixed with a strong faith background and my mother who never let me wallow for long.  I'm wired for hope.  Over the years, some serious life turns have worn me down.  There have been days I was in such darkness I had to choose physically to let my legs take me into the company of people who could hope for me.

But in my better days, I tend to try to rally the inner resources to look out for the pennies scattered in my universe.  Beauty moves me.  The cherry tree blossoms wending their way through the air in our backyard right now seem impossibly good.  But I've learned too that beauty is shallow in itself unless it intersects pain, my own pain and the pain of others.  I grow both in my meeting with others and in my solitude, which make up my life.

So I leave you this morning with a quote from one of my very favorite poets of all time, Rainer Maria Rilke, whom I wished had written me letters, and whom I wish to become more and more:
“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. . .Don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” 

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