Bowl of Oranges

"Enough. These words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life we have refused
again and again
Until now
Until now."

This David Whyte poem found its way to me recently. It reminded me so much of where I was a year ago, and years before, stewing in a thickening pot of questions and complaints, inertia and self inflicted insecurity. When I think back to that time I can hardly recognize myself except for that nervous smile which I still carry in my care from time to time.
I feel removed from the words she spoke and I wonder if she ever really meant what she said. She often put on a guise of strength she very rarely felt and I feel she and I have finally come to meet.

I feel an inner similarity to one of my favourite Mary Oliver poems called The Journey.
When something happens, you see something or someone or you hear or read words that move you and suddenly you realise you have that moment to change, when your whole past can be swept up and the north easterly can blow it all over the city so populated with resigned moods and careful laughter. You decide to fall.
And I remember the day I fell. I remember the journey leading up to that and honestly, although it was full of uncertain thoughts and unfulfilled feelings, I wouldn’t go back and re- do any of it. Ultimately it lead me to the moment I found myself in, where I allowed the notions I had created in my mind over the span of my 22 years to dissipate. The lesser experiences I had had concerning love, lust and all the confusion between the two, I realised, was leading the way to something, for lack of a better word, real.

Indeed; I decided, enough.

Enough with the bottomless excuses vaguely answering the question: why?
Enough hiding. Enough torturous blaming and finger pointing. Enough self depreciation.

It took me a while to learn I was human. To discover that yes, mistakes and bad judgement were all part of growing up into the person you dreamed to be when you were young. And another while to find out that not many people end up becoming that person anyway.
And at the risk of sounding completely unoriginal, I realised how enduring, how absolutely essential true happiness is, from the inside out.

I feel, every so often, I need to take a tentative step back from my life and myself and see what’s there. The existence of love and beauty so easy to see when looked for.

I’m going to end this personal lament with another quote, this time from a song:

“But if the world could remain within a frame like a painting on a wall.
Then I think we would see the beauty.
Then we would stand staring in awe at our still lives posed like a bowl of oranges.”