A While

It has been a while, sitting by a slip of a stream, waiting.

It has been a while since I paused here, here where the words flow. They slip around one obstacle in me and past another to move onward. I opened my hands to hold a few as they slide past. It has been a while. Sometimes they are dammed up until something erodes and they find their way around the blockage. Words in me do that—just like water in a stream. Words will flow in me again eventually like water flows around everything in its path.

This has been quite a week. As if this virus and other unknown viruses weren’t enough, deep, angry sadness is erupting like geysers overflowing their banks, city after city, flooding into our awareness. Our nation’s deep angry sadness is flowing. And though I cannot go out to the marches, within I stand with them. Millions are standing up this week in vivid centuries-worn sadness. Even the skies this morning here are grey, tired, aching, drizzling.

I remember some years back sitting a bit downstream while my grandchildren played and explored just below the falls in Forest Falls. I could hear their laughter and squeals of delight marking their places. I sat listening to their play in a moment of stillness. This, too, is a moment of stillness, but so different, so very different.

And in this still moment, I’ll just sit here with one thought: words can flow just as water can flow just as this sadness flows. That sadness has become a river in the heart of all our lives. The words of protest ring louder than before. I can only sit with this thought this morning and find peace in hope. I hope for all those standing up in the streets that a deep and abiding peace will soothe their deep abiding sadness.

It will be grey for a few more days. I may just sit quietly in that and rest. And maybe wander out into the garden amid the weeds again. Tomorrow. Today is just a moment of awareness of this long and desperate sadness.