The Work Continues

No matter what happens

My friend Virginia Kantra sent me the Mary Oliver poem “40 Years” recently, which I share with you from The Poetry Foundation who are working to digitize and expand access to poetry because it’s worth reading today of all days.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=167&issue=6&page=22

I have been writing longer than forty years—since I started my first novel at the age of 12, and I can say that it is among the greatest blessings of my life. Knowing that I burned to write at so young an age swept away a great deal of dithering and worry—although I had plenty of course. We do, all of us. But the focus on knowing I wanted to write—burned to write, yearned to write—has been a great oak of certainty. I knew early on that it could never be mastered, that I’d have to keep learning, uncovering, relearning, that it would be absorbing and fascinating forever, that I would never stop enjoying the pleasure of telling myself stories.

But from here, so many decades on, what I see is that the true blessing is in this continous passage of words through my mind, my heart, my fingers, to the page. Here, I capture the moment that is now, and now, and now. Here, I am myself. Here, I speak to you.

Whatever things go on in the great wide world (and I mourn things, just as you do though I don’t mention them here because I’ve chosen to make this a place of peace where you might take refuge), I have this practice, this beautiful, heartening, challenging, rewarding practice of spinning tales through my fingers.

Wishing love for all today, and peace in the coming days. I love you.