1.9.26

This is to say, I still feel broken. This is to say, the world is too. This is to say, I love the Earth and its people despite, because, always. Despite the terror we inflict on each other and all other beings, despite the way we ensure our ruin with even more certainty everyday. "We loved the Earth but we could not stay." 

I feel terrible most days. I try to walk and smile, like an ordinary person would. What is this broken hearted sickness? Does it ever go away? Can someone bigger and wiser than me tell me how to be? Should I cry? Should I be enraged? Should I offer my life as tribute somewhere, someplace, where they can put it to better use than I have? 

I'll say this - there was P, who laughed so much at something I said he fell to the ground of the laundry room. He sat on the floor, barely being able to breathe from laughter, surrounded by sheets and pillowcases and the sound of the tumbling laundry machines. And O, whose gentle strength I can't help but love. There is G, who told me the poets she likes are the kind who have seen the spirit. 

And which of us haven't seen the spirit? On my walk this morning I saw her. I saw her in the deer tracks, the moss, and sweet fern who probably think it is almost spring. I heard her in the wind. I wanted to get down on my knees so I did. All this, and I still don't know most days how to love this life.