A World of Dew, and Yet. . .
It’s early summer and the roses are as wide as tea saucers. When I pass by the garden on the way into the house, their heady scent cloaks me. There are too many blooms to cut and bring inside, but the few I’ve arranged simply in vases astound me with their dense layers of petals.
I am humbled by beauty like this; without a great deal of work from me, the garden yields new blossoms every morning. I feel humbled too by the realization that though majesty and wonder charge our world, many people can’t experience either. How fortunate I am to be able to feel something as I look at the roses.
I am aware that my perception of beauty and enjoyment of this world is a gift, and a tenuous one at that. I think of the dear people I’ve known who have battled depression, of the powerlessness and despair they have tried to describe–a dulling of all senses, an inability to respond, to hear, to see. “It’s like being deep underwater, wrapped in chains,” a friend once told me. I can see glimmers of action, hear muted voices above me, but I can’t free myself to swim to the surface.” When this friend ended her life after a long battle with mental illness, someone told me that she believed some people were just not meant for this world.
No. I couldn't believe it.
The rest of this post is at the blog I share with my friend, colleague, and fellow-writer, Lindsay Joss-Iudicello.
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