Circe, he says, it will be all right. It is not the saying of an oracle or a prophet. ... He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive.
Circe, Madeline Miller
By Friday, most of the faith I have in us, myself, and humanity, has slipped behind the fear of being tired, of being too spent from merely surviving the week - I cannot imagine being responsible for more. But lazy mornings with extra coffee remind me how ease-y I can have it, make it, be it, how evident Source is within you and within me when I look for it. I’m reminded of how wonderfully we’ve endured, how beautiful the extra crease in my middle is when I let it be, how much I actually enjoy our pups running through the dog door at full speed caked in mud. I move and meditate and I know that I am good.
When I go to the fridge and find chopped strawberries because I choked six years ago on our honeymoon, I forget the miles we spent traveling and therefore fighting, the loops around the neighborhood spent arguing, and for a moment, and am thankful we have things to fight for. I’m lulled to sleep by the fan’s breeze that grazes our soft, oversized sheets you keep fresh for me each week. I know that you are good.
When it feels impossible to get you to see others who don’t look like you, I’m reminded how gingerly you help my grandma up the stairs, fix her sink, and eat her cakes (with a fork straight from the stand, just as my family does). I’m so tuned in to seeing others and feeling for them, I forget that you’re better in action. I’m reminded how often you’ve turned around for wildlife, helping snakes, turtles, cats, and deer make it across the road. How many strangers’ tires you’ve changed, how many appliances you’ve repaired, how many fences you’ve built. I know that you are good.
When I watch you move my friend’s dingy couch, sweat beading on your olive forearms, five shades darker than mine (they’ll have your skin and my eyes, dark and green), I know you are good, that you will be a good father.
I’ll be the big picturer, the grand adventurer, empathetic philosopher, who lives in a bit of a dirty, hippy house, who lets our children play in puddles and grow their own vegetables and paint and pick up lizards and eat “expired” food, and I’ll remind them they are animals, that they are from this Earth we must acknowledge, protect, and enjoy everyday. I’ll teach them how to breathe. You can handle the details. You’ve mastered the nitty gritty survival skills it takes to move through this broken world with steadfastness, tenacity, and an unshakeable confidence I’ve never been able to grasp. You’ll influence them with the deep practical wisdom you’ve cultivated over years of perseverance, grit, and belief in yourself. I’ll remind us all to believe in something a bit bigger.
I know it’s naive, silly, in this economy, this risen degree of Celsius, this unfair reality that shakes me almost everyday. But in this responsibility, this adventure, I really believe we will become more ourselves. I can see it, I can see us. Can’t you? See us? Them? Swinging outside before dinner? Board games after? Late night Christmas Eve drives?
I ground us in sacred routine, in finding the everyday magic, in connecting to that bigger vision. You uplift us with the follow-through, solving problems with intuition and ease, making my lofty ideas a reality.
I give us a dream, something to grow into. You carve out a reality, digging roots in deep, something to grab onto. Together we make a transcendent home, and I know we will be safe here, moving through all of this contrast. As we create our own light, we become our own safety.
Here’s to six years. To Us.
Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.
Sadhana, Rabindranath Tagore