June 20, 2017

we have to say goodbye to everything *

Even the vine of peas climbing incrementally upward as summer opens
to its first chapter. In the grip of optimism, we still hear the cautionary tale
of scars from old disappointments, losses we thought long buried. It's hard,
almost heroic, to give the full thrust of undiluted joy to anything, knowing
what we know. The storm we were waiting for inevitably comes, flinging hail
to the yard, drowning the garden we'd built, and something changes irreversibly in us,
a muscle forever tenderized by the pummel of grief. But there is also this: that moment
the weather moves east and we look up and see a wash of light that takes over the sky,
and below us, we notice the tenderness and greenness of a vine whose chances
have not yet run out. This - this - is why we're here.

* I stole this line from a voice message my friend Laurie sent me.