“Sometimes,” a beloved poem begins, “things don’t go, after all, from bad to worse.” As a realist (READ: downer) I tend to think of life as a long road filled with disasters that you can see coming from far off – and then, there’s this turn… and you can’t see around that at all.
We are nearly to the turn.
Sometimes, not everything goes wrong.
Every year at the coming of Spring, we contemplate the fire season. We can’t see around that turn. Every year one of my nephews gains – happy birthday, Little E! – brings him closer to – or finally past – the age where another little boy was shot holding a pop gun or while backtalking or walking home or while looking like he was somehow dangerously unchild and suspicious and threatening to grown adults with guns. We can’t see around that turn. Sometimes not everything goes wrong, but it takes a tremendous amount of trust to keep walking this road.
past the turn, the hill rises
sun-kissed and ancient
The poem seems hopeful, but the backstory is heartbreaking.
@Tricia Stohr-Hunt: The backstory is getting louder and louder and harder to drown out. I want to be hopeful – the ancient hill has stood forever and surely if it has stood that long – but anything might come along that road. Is this just my anxiety speaking more loudly than my common sense? I don’t know anymore.
One of my favourite poems.
The upside to being a realist is the delight that comes when something does actually turn out well.
A heart-breaking truth.