The morning is bright, the contemplations deep if not scattered. I’m thinking seeds and breezes. I read some poems. I read a short piece from David Whyte on unrequited love: “Men and women have always had difficulty with the way a love returned hardly ever resembles a love given… The great discipline seems to be to give up wanting to control the manner in which we are requited.” I watch a thin and leggy spider climb the window screen, almost translucent and glowing in the morning sun. I overhear the neighbors talking about work and some evaluation or another. The world of work and commerce and productivity is always knocking on the door of the present moment.
If there is a theme stitched throughout the morning, it is how to live life. From Marie Howe’s poem “The Maples,” “I asked the maples behind the house, / How should I live my life? // They said shhh shhh shhh…” From Ada Limon’s “Salvage” about a half-burned madrone tree:
… I am reminded
of the rightousness I had before the scorch
of time. I miss who I was. I miss who we all were,
before we were this: half-alive to the brightening sky,
half-dead already. I place my hand on the unscarred
bark that is cool and unsullied, and because I cannot
apologize to the tree, to my own self I say, I am sorry.
I am sorry I have been so reckless with your life.
At times, I find myself asking the observable world how I should live my life. The flowers, the spider, the hummingbirds keep the answers to themselves. At times, I find myself apologizing for living it the wrong way, or the selfish way. Too many nights with friends at bars. Too many mornings cloud-headed and slow. There is a statement or question or series of statements and questions that I can’t seem to articulate this morning. Life is about being present, being observant. But if those observations aren’t shared, if they aren’t connected to some larger fundamental truth, what good are they? Isn’t being observant a form of love – love for the world? Is the sharing about reciprocation or acknowledgment? There’s a verbal tug of war. This is more than enough. There’s gotta be more to it.
If there’s been a second theme, it’s been about anticipation – that thief of the present moment. I worked on a poem (barely) about how on an evening walk, with the sun slung low and behind me, my shadow was over twenty feet tall – my head always arriving well before my heart. When I’m out walking, I’m often looking ahead to the intersections, wondering how to time the crosswalk. When I catch myself doing this, I have to remind myself to remain present – that I’m in no hurry. Aside from completing my loop, I have no destination in mind. The crosswalk will be what it will be and I can deal with its realities when I arrive. I think similar things when I catch myself fishing for my keys before I’ve gotten to my apartment.
Those small bouts with expediency make me wonder about what else I might be missing because I’m focused on the next thing. I think about the woman who lives two hours away in Santa Cruz – the one on a dating app I’d be hesitant to reply to because, well, two hours away. I think about the job opportunity that I pass on because I’m not sure I’d be passionate enough to do well at it. I think about the poems I cut short or never write because I’m not sure where they’re going or what the arrival will look like. If love (in the broadest sense of the term) is about discovery and presence and letting go of expectations, I am (more often than I’d like to be) a bad lover.
It’s later now. The spider has gone to wherever the spider was going. The sky is awash in pale blues and sunshine. I can hear a flock of parakeets flying by. There might be more to this (all of it), but for now, this is more than enough.