Graceful Dance

Today’s 30-day challenge photo

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I call a

Graceful Dance

between seeking answers and solutions for life’s challenges and practicing acceptance of life and all of the myriad of painful and difficult things that happen in life.

Recently I came upon a poem that stopped me in my tracks. It filled me with conflicting feelings. I started to write about it last week but couldn’t find the words to express how right and how wrong it felt at the very same time. But the more I’ve pondered it, the truer it seems. And the more I read it the more I feel a sense of possibility and hope nestled among all of the hard things.

Before I go any further, here is the poem…

Good Bones

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

   — Maggie Smith

Good Bones

I spend a lot of time looking for reasons to be grateful, seeing beauty, celebrating wonder and awe, and doing what I love. In addition, I have a home that I love, family and friends, no worries about money, plenty of food, and more. These are huge blessings I do not take for granted.

The one thing I don’t have that I’ve wanted, worked for, dreamed of and believed that I could one day achieve if I just figured everything out, is a physical body that allows me to do everything I want to do. Sometimes I get caught up in trying, trying, trying to fix myself, to no avail.

But last week I read something that gave me a sense of truth. It was written by a poet who lost her 21 year old son to suicide several years ago. She often writes about her grief and pain at the loss. But she also wrote (I’m paraphrasing here), “What comes after the tears and grief is acceptance, blessed acceptance.”

So these are the good true bones I am thinking of as I assess where I am in my life right now.

•  my body doesn’t always let me do everything I want to do, so I do what I can to get stronger, greet each day with a sense of possibility and do what I am able to do. And I practice acceptance. What else can I do?
• looking at the world around me I often filled with a sense of despair for all of the selfishness, destructiveness, and damage we humans have wrought. If I focus solely on this it will bring me to my knees. So I choose joy, practice gratitude, and seek wonder, awe, and beauty. And I practice acceptance. What else can I do?
• I am getting older and can expect that I may experience new and different challenges as I age. So I gaze out at the world around me and see that life is a circle of birth, growth, dissolution, and death and I look for the beauty of each stage. And I practice acceptance. What else can I do?

Life is terrible and beautiful. Look for the good true bones, spread light, practice acceptance, and dance a graceful dance between your grief and your joy.

May you walk in beauty.

Note: My hydrangea tree is in full glorious bloom. The honey bees are so happy.