Weeping and Wonder

As life becomes harder and more threatening, it also becomes richer, because the fewer expectations we have, the more good things of life become unexpected gifts that we accept with gratitude.

Etty Hillesum
An Interrupted Life

This is a “desert time” for me. This desert time comes to many. A dear friend in responding to one of my “Adventures in Gratitude” where I spoke about this “desert time” shared this poem with me:

Desert Places
by Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it—it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

In my desert place there often seems to be nothing but the heat of anger and grief of what is not. Closer to the truth is like too many I wanted life to be like a beautiful flower bouquet that is loved for its bloom and discarded for the next bouquet. I had thought to step outside the natural rhythm of bloom and the inevitable dried and dried-up flowers that follow. So here I stand with my withered stems.

Like many women my age, this is a time of pain and opportunity. Will I mourn the loss of the “bloom” or appreciate this desert for its own sake? Like age, the desert can destroy or by its fierce winds uncover beauty unknown.

This desert is harsh and stark in its exposure of what is. Life and age strip away delusion. I am confronted with the truth of impermanence and the inevitable sadness that accompanies inevitable loss. Yet, the desert has it has its own beauty. I find myself examining my tears and am surprised that sometimes I find sustenance in their wetness.

The harshness of this desert time has caused much weeping these past months as my health has declined and my heart was again broken by what is, but it has also brought great wonder. Love blooms even in this arid place. As I examine my desert I find that it is not bland or lifeless. It is a place that calls for toughness and even thorns. I am becoming stronger here.

So here I reside in my desert place. I do not throw away my withered stems this time. I clutch them to my breast and love what they and I were and are. Not everyday is about survival in sandstorms, recently my beloveds come and turn my attention away from sand to the many oases that reside in my desert land. I am grateful.