Pop Quiz: when is the last time you learned to walk again? This is not a trick question. (Well, maybe it’s slightly tricky, but there’s no wrong answer.) Step. Step. Fall. Stand Up. Step. Fall. Stand Up. Fall. (Perhaps be embraced wildly and celebrated!)
Fifteen years ago, my father had a dream that offered me a different— and life changing —answer to my question. I had already begun to suspect that “No” might not be the only possible reply to this question. Nonetheless, the truth that it’s not all right to feel happy…
In writing this to you now, I taste again the nectar of that butterfly’s presence and the wonder of my father’s spirit alighting (even if just in my imagination). What a perennial gift writing is, leading us, when we let it, deep into the heart. To harvest the nectar. To harvest love.
If every item on my to-do list were a person, the line would go out my door, down the road, past the two cow barns, all the way to the banks of the Connecticut, over the river (if the bridge vetoed out of existence had actually been built)—— and then some.
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
