that's mrs. mediocrity to you

“Find a bit of beauty in the world today. Share it.
If you can’t find it, create it. Some days this may be hard to do.
Persevere.”
~ Lisa Bonchek Adams

Many of you have probably already heard that Lisa passed away last night. Her tweets, like the one above, crossed my path daily for years now, and I always admired her courage, her humor, and her willingness to fight her battle so valiantly and publicly in an effort to raise awareness.

In December, a good friend and member of our family–the same age as I am–was taken very quickly by cancer. I haven’t talked about it much here because her battle was private and not mine to talk about.

But today, I am reminded, yet again, how precious life is.

Just now, I know several other people who are also fighting:
an aunt, a friend’s mother, a friend’s friend.

So today, as I have on many other days, I thank Lisa
for the lessons, the reminders, the beauty.

I send love and hugs to those who fight.

And I remember.

.

.

.

It’s the shadows that reveal the pattern: dark light white, dark light white. The days roll into a fog of sameness, and I am stuck, wallowing in boredom, or ennui, or something worse: a voice that whispers not good enough.

Habits form and are broken. Wounds heal and become scars. Time is relentless and finite and never sits still.

Chaos is the natural order of things. We fight it, stacking plates and sorting socks, pushing snow and building walls, but it’s always there, lurking around every corner.

I kind of like that.

Except when I don’t, but that’s the nature of life.

I think a lot lately of a book that changed my life once, a very long time ago. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. It’s essentially a book about giving up, accepting, trying less and being more. At least that’s what it was for me.

The joy of sinking into who you are rather than who you want to be.

Walking into the sea of self and washing yourself clean of life’s dust.

Standing naked in today’s mirror and not cringing at your own humanity. Not wishing to be something or someone or someplace other.

I cook dinner and wash the plates. Again and again and again. I tidy the room and sweep the floors and straighten the papers on my desk.

The chaos always returns.

We spend our lives fighting for order in a world that offers anarchy.

And that’s the lesson. That’s the pattern.

Just now, the plates are clean.

.

.

.

and curtains of words

birds
pecking at windows
in hunger

and i need
sharper claws
stronger tools
dig
deeper

bony fingers
scrabble signal

red-bellied woodpecker
big-beaked bluejay
tiny chickadee

all surviving
huddled together

flutter waiting

still flying

.

.

.