Tag: Newtown

discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

Where To Next?

mimijk

“It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening” –Sue Monk Kidd

It is taking more effort than it should to get behind the wheel of the Karma Truck.  And yet I also know that there is nothing worse for any piece of machinery than to leave it idle for too long.  The same is true of the heart.  I haven’t been sleeping well, unable to release this sorrow of incalculable proportion.  I admire and envy those who are mobilizing in word and deed to address the gaping hole in the safety net for people with mental health concerns, others who have driven to Newtown with the intent to help however possible, the anonymous individuals who are doing something – anything – to remind us above all else of the power of shared humanity.

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The heart forgets little – and perhaps remembers too much.  Moments of grief are greeted by past moments of mourning.  These thoughts huddle together commiserating, taking up space and time.  Demanding their due, yet if unchecked, unbearably relentless and too oppressive to manage.  I need to take the keys back and get this motor started.

“If it is true your life flashes before you before you die, then it is also true that life rushes forth when you are ready to start being alive” — Amy Hemple

There are certainly times when we need to crawl inside ourselves and heal.  Moments when the most elemental activities seem Sisyphean.  And there are times when you have to purposefully pull yourself back into life.  I am blessed, I am grateful and I need to come home to that which I know and all that I don’t.  I still have tears to shed – I’m clearly not done.  The fog that has socked in this region for the last two days is beginning to lift; I saw a couple of stars through the clouds when I was out with the Sirs earlier today.  I said a little prayer and breathed deeply.  There is something to be said for remembering that there is grace in most things, if one is open to its presence.  Perhaps I’ll only make it around the block today, but I’ll surely drive towards the sun.

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anxiety, friendship, life lessons, love, mindfulness, parenting

When The Heart Just Hurts

mimijk

“Life will break you.  Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning.  You have to love.  You have to feel.  It is the reason you are here on earth.  You are here to risk your heart.  You are here to be swallowed up.  And when it happens that you are broken or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit under an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps wasting their sweetness.  Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”   — Louise Erdrich

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I  had different plans for this post – we attended my daughter-in-law’s graduation yesterday, the day before was a banner day at the barn.  I can’t get there right now.  My heart returns to the unfathomable shock of yesterday’s disaster in Newtown.  I can’t turn away for to do so would diminish the feeling of being inconsolable.  I pray that these families tasted abundant sweetness and that they are enveloped in love and support.  My tears drip on the keyboard – I can’t write about the loss of life itself…one can plan I suppose, though arguably it is better to hope.