Up to Us
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
So here's how I see it, in these brittle, aching times: We only have each other going forward. Nothing is matter of fact—not our jobs, not our clients, not our favorite shops (I go out, I seek, they are gone), not our favorite people in our favorite familiar places (suddenly they have been vanished, too), not our future. And those who once seemed straightforward, firm, reliably reliable are doubting, less certain, wracked by caution.
There is less of most things. There is more ache ahead. There are questions nobody can answer. And so it is up to us to fill the gaps and erase the voids, to shore these days up with our attentiveness, our kindness. To live these days, too, because we won't get them back—live them, walk them, photograph them, write them, love them, share them. We'll be older when this is over. We'll look back. We'll wonder who we were, and how we lived.
And on another note entirely (but not really; this is connected): Thank you, Jane Satterfield at Loyola University, for teaching Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River to your gifted students today. They are lucky to have you.
10 comments:
You have (as you so often do, especially lately)captured exactly how I am feeling this week. Thank you for this.
Less of some things may not be a bad thing. We do live in a society of excess.
But (sigh) that's not your point. Just my soapbox.
Have a great day.
Oh, PJ. I am the queen of minimal, and always have been. Consumerism is not my scene, but heartache and the big losses that other experience—the real losses—those concern me. Children who can't go to the colleges they've worked so hard to go to. Families losing homes. People losing basic medical care. Police forces being reduced and safety wavering. Those concern me deeply.
B&BM: Hoping I can meet you in person, next week.
Thanks for the post beth, it was uplifting, at least to me. I am feeling very, very down these days but it helps to read something like this.
A few months ago, I chatted with an elderly gentleman who grew up during the Depression. He talked of working on the farm, fishing for catfish for supper after the work was done, trapping skunks to sell the pelts, the dust and dirt layers over everything in the house even though everything was shut up, how his Dad wouldn't give up. At least 3 or 4 times, as he talked, he'd smile and say, "It was a good life."
That's stayed with me. This post reminded me. Thanks for the encouragement today.
You speak much truth, Beth.
Lilly, I've been worried about you. I hope your days lighten.
Sherry, Yours is a glorious story.
Vivian, Thank you.
It is a time of re-ordering and re-thinking. For now, we all seem to be grieving a bit, the loss of our too-shiny American dreams.
I think soon we must shake off the miasma and begin to look for the clear light of day again.
Beth, you always have your finger right on the heartbeat of things...how do you do that?
One of your many gifts...
XO
Anna
Thank you for reminding us what is truly important. It's so easy to get caught in cycles of negativity these days. And then you come along, handing out goodness. :)
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