The cost of keeping the peace

I feel as is I am missing chances to write down what I see....so often my eye is drawn to a small something...like a leaf illumined in a particularly brilliant way, and I stop to take in the beauty. I think to myself, “I want to capture this moment of beauty.” but then I am hands dirty and in the middle of picking beans. I can’t always stop. But what disturbs me is I rarely stop. I mean RARELY. It should be the other way around. It should be rare that I don’t stop.

I also want to write to Ka again and begin writing poetry once more with her, if she’ll have me that is. I can feel my spirit slowly starving to death with the busy work of life. Rushing here, dashing off there, I rarely sit down with my notebook or laptop and just write. When I reflect on this I can feel the sharp pain in my soul. My fear is I will slowly suffocate that still small voice wants to give words to the beauty seen all around. I’m afraid I will harden my heart in this hurried lifestyle and choose death by starvation instead of choosing life. It is possible to do this. Easy to do this in fact.

Sandeep would be pleased because this is productiveness in his eyes. It is not that he wishes me ill. No, he loves me, I know. But to him, life is to be walked though with bold, purpose-full steps. Work, in Sandeep’s mind, is checking off the list, slogging through the cleaning, paying the bills, reconciling the credit card statement to the penny. Sandeep’s vision is practical, logical, black and white. It is what runs businesses and corporations. The stuff of successful folk.

To keep the peace I try to fit into his vision. But I can sense it isn’t working. I can feel myself rebelling. It is not that I don’t value and appreciate this world view because I really do. Sandeep keeps a roof over our head and food on our table. But the gift of seeing the beautiful, of capturing the intricate pattern of a fragile spiders web or the sacred humbleness of an earthworm...these things also are needed in the world.

I think I need to talk to Sandeep about this. I know he will probably feel defensive. He will go back to our age old fights over who cleans more and organizes better. How can I argue against cleanliness, I can’t! It is next to godliness, is it not? But then again, seeing with the eye of a poet is GODLINESS...it is not next to it, eh?

I am going to make a pact with myself. I am going to write a small poem at least a day for a week. If I struggle, so be it. At some point the struggling will cease. It’s like a baseball player’s hitting slump. If they give up on themselves they will quit baseball and never achieve what is in their heart. But if they just trudge through, if they just keep plugging along, they will break out of the slump. They will find their swing and batting eye again. So it is with a writer. All they must do is write and the rest will fall into place.

OK. I WILL do it. NO excuses, no would of, could of, should of’s. Just do it, damn it!