Heading Home Again
The past few weeks have been an in-between time, from the surgery nearly three weeks ago to treatment which begins next week.
Almost immediately following the surgery, our kitchen sink collapsed and the long-overdue renovations could be delayed no longer. We relocated to my Mother-in-Law’s apartment to not interrupt the construction or my healing.
This temporary refuge offers a beautiful and peaceful view of a pond with a 12-foot water fountain. This sanctuary is attractive not only to my recovering body, but also to several dozen Canadian geese who call this place home.
Throughout the day, the geese feast on the manicured grass and find relief from the fountain’s mist. As the sun sets, the wild geese parade in a straight line to seek their safe haven for the evening and night.
Poet Mary Oliver, inspired by these same waterfowl in 1986 (one of my favorite years #LGM), wrote her famous poem, Wild Geese. It goes like this:
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
In reading this poem during these trying days, I find myself drawn Oliver’s invitation of better engaging nature, especially when our hearts might be heavier than usual.
As this punishing July thankfully comes to a close, I am tired but hopeful. Despite the wounds and the mental anguish, I am strengthened by the unity that continues to be expressed by your prayers, notes of kindness, and messages of love and friendship. This month was as wonderful as it was painful because it reminded me of our human connection and God’s love that flows through us all.
Like the wild geese in Oliver’s poem and outside my very window, I am returning home again. The noise and distractions that once separated me from you and from God’s creation continues to fade away.
As one who never took a sunset for granted and lit up every time my kids walked into the room, my eyes are open even wider and my relationship with you and our creator deepens by the day.
What a blessing it is to be a part of this world and to better appreciate, learn, and grow. As Oliver says much more eloquently in another one of her poems, Invitation: “It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.”
