[Thought for the day || Life wears grooves in every soul. It saddens me how some people grow weary and become so hard, so untouched, so untouching. Relished for the cracks in the paint ... who wants to live in a white-picket-fence world? I get how it happens; Lord knows I've seen my fair share of ups-and-downs ... I've questioned, I've faltered, sleepless nights over things I couldn't control.... but so what? In your own way I'm sure you have too....and like me, I'm sure you've made it through (a better person for it). In a society filled with walls, boundaries, protection, and fear ... I prefer the freedom found in those who appreciate that life is perfect because of it's imperfections, not inspite of them.
In tune with the poem below, perhaps that is the one thing that I appreciate the most about my mothers life (and her passing) ... even in her twilight, she was an open source of light ... teaching lessons as she learned them herself. If she had been born of another fiber, one who cursed the world for that which she did not request ... or reclused at every sign of need or hope (because with it, might also come pain) ... she would have never left such deeply beautiful tracks upon my soul.]
THINGS SHOULDN’T BE SO HARD
Kay Ryan
A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small —
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn’t
be so hard.
