I sat down to write and the internet wasn’t working. Then as i tried to transfer a photo for the post from my phone to the computer the airdrop wasn’t working. My photostream isn’t syncing. I tried one thing then another. The internet came in and out. And all i wanted to do was sit down and write my final post while Ron stepped out to pick up some bread. It would have been the perfect timing – he’s gone for 15 minutes or so, i sit down with a cup of coffee, look out the window at the ocean and write. (We’re in Manzanita for the weekend – and it is beautiful.)
He came back. I hadn’t accomplished what i wanted to. He offered a few helpful solutions and i was basically just a cranky jerk.
Ron (in a very helpful voice): “I found last night that the internet works better over by the desk.”
Me (packing up my computer in irritation at not having gotten anything done): “Yeah, well, the last thing i want to do is write right now. That’s gonna turn out great – to write when i’m cranky.”
Then the thought came to me – essentially what i was saying is “WHY CAN’T I HAVE WHAT I WANT?”
And it made me laugh a little bit – for the last post of the 31 day challenge to start out with my cranky attitude calling out in all its selfish, pity-party-ness “why can’t i have what i want?”
And i realized it was the perfect time to sit down and write.
I opened up word on my computer (because i thought i might write the post there first while waiting for the internet to get its act together), and here were the three lines on the document that popped up:
“It is too late now for earlier ways
Now there are only some other ways
And only one way to find them – fail”
From Level Light by William Stafford
Ok.
And this is what this month has really been about. Trying and failing. Trying some more. Wrestling and whining and wiping the slate clean and trying again. There has certainly been failing. But there are also been moving forward.
So this morning, as i had a mini tantrum about the internet and not being able to do what i wanted to do when i wanted to do it, it is good to return to William Stafford and see 1) my failing and 2) that that fail doesn’t mean there hasn’t been progress and 3) all you can do is keep trying moving forward – wrestling off the old ways, trying on the new ways, failing, celebrating, stumbling, running – sometimes dancing – sometimes crying.
i walk as if my face would kiss the wind
a raw tumultuous girl
the still point of the turning world
there is still time
(and in honor of Galway Kinnell, i will post the whole of his poem here)
Galway Kinnell, “The Still Time”
I know there is still time –
time for the hands
to open, for the bones of them
to be filled
by those failed harvests of want,
the bread imagined of the days of not having.
Now that the fear
has been rummaged down to its husk,
and the wind blowing
the flesh away translates itself
into flesh and the flesh
gives itself in its reveries to the wind.
I remember those summer nights
when I was young and empty,
when I lay through the darkness
wanting, wanting,
knowing
I would have nothing of anything I wanted –
that total craving
that hollows the heart out irreversibly.
So it surprises me now to hear
the steps of my life following me –
so much of it gone
it returns, everything that drove me crazy
comes back, blessing the misery
of each step it took me into the world;
as though a prayer had ended
and the bit of changed air
between the palms goes free
to become the glitter
on some common thing that inexplicably shines.
And the old voice,
which once made its broken-off, choked, parrot-incoherences,
speaks again,
this time on the palatum cordis
this time saying there is time, still time,
for one who can groan
to sing,
for one who can sing to be healed.
The Still Time 