Comfortable Clothes

Dear Reader,

So life has seemed to me, for the last few weeks, to be an ill-fitting suit of clothes.   Do you remember the original Babar the Elephant book?  Where he finds himself in a town (PARIS!) and sees everyone dressed in smart clothes and meets the Old Lady, who is ridiculously generous to elephants and who buys him a suit of clothes; a green coat, a hat, some spats.   That elephant looked sharp.  He even has his picture taken.   It is like he is finally in the right place with the right clothes.  Everything fit.   (Don't start talking about all of the imperialist symbolism here, please, dear reader.  I know.  I'm making an analogy, OK?  :))

Well, a shift has started to happen in the past few days for me.   I'm feeling the drama/discomfort/anxiety recede and some small sources of comfort take up residence in my heart.   You know that I am relentless in my pursuit of poetry that provides me with wisdom and emotional support.   So, here's a great one that I read recently:

The Winter of Listening

No one but me by the fire,
my hands burning
red in the palms while
the night wind carries
everything away outside.

All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.

What is precious inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind in ways that diminish
its presence.

What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire,

What disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything
we need.

What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves but
what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world.

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say.

All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard.

All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow
difficulty
of remembering
how everything
is born from
an opposite
and miraculous
otherness.

Silence and winter
has led me
to that otherness.

So let this winter
of listening
be enough
for the new life
which I must call my own.

---David White

So, this poem is FABULOUS.   Am I right, dear reader?   I mean, I am sure that I need to read it about a dozen more times to start to comprehend how FABULOUS it is, but WOW.

I love it.   And, yes, my listening to my own life in recent days has led me to a place where I feel like I am more comfortable.   My life is starting to turn back into a comfortable pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt.  I have come back to myself.   I don't want to get too cocky because we all know that emotional equanimity and good mental health can be fleeting.   But, I am pleased and peaceful and grateful for the moment.  Much of that has to do with me being at the end of the semester.   Music juries were today (it always makes me happy to see students demonstrating artistic and musical growth), my piano class and lesson finals will be done tomorrow morning, exams will all come through email rather than written on the spot.  I have high hopes of finishing all grades and submitting by Sunday evening.   I've been starting to get more regular sleep.  I have been to yoga twice this week, both times feeling a sense of openness and calm and physical comfort after the class.  I will go to yoga at least 4 days next week while the kids are still in school.   I have started Christmas shopping.  I have memorized a Chopin nocturne, solidly, in two weeks (a little contest I had with myself).  I am reading a great page-turner of a swashbuckling, intellectual, bibliophile mystery recommended by a new friend.   I have a real Christmas tree in my living room for the first time in 12 years or so.   I am thinking about making some good changes in my professional life in the next year or so.  I have watched lovely videos of elephant twins and panda triplets in the last few days.   My children and I have had many, many lovely holiday moments so far.   My daughter keeps telling me that her Mama is CUTE and PRECIOUS.   And, I believe her because children tell the truth.   :)

So, horrible things are still happening in the world. and I am not ignoring them. and difficult times are facing some of my friends. and I grieve for them, and I am not immune to personal sadness right now.   BUT, I am listening.   And, as the poem says, "everything is born from an opposite and miraculous otherness."   And, by god, "inside everyone is a great shout of joy, waiting to be born."  So, the seeds of possibility and joy and comfort are lying dormant within the grief and pain and sadness I see/hear and experience.  I think I really believe that, dear reader.   Yes, I think I really do believe that.   So, I'm going to sit here and water those seeds for myself.   And, try to be a good and loving presence with my friends, my children, my family, and with strangers on the street.   That's my version of the incredibly generous Old Lady in the Babar story.   I'm not sure whether I am Babar or the Old Lady, but maybe I'm both.

So, dear reader, this has been a serious post.   I have a couple of other blog posts that I think will return a tone of lightness here on this page in future days.   In fact, I have a whole rant about my hair which will be either ridiculously navel-gazing or hilarious - you get to decide.    And, I'd like to explore the concept of spinsterhood.   So, yeah, there are more things to be said.   I look forward to writing about it.

Keep enjoying this season of comfort and joy, dear reader.   Let's water those seeds so they start blooming in the spring.  OK?

Thanks for reading.