Toll booth at Button Bridge in Hood River, Oregon.
Dear You,
Because the light is short and the weather heavy, I’m in the getting-through season. Sweaters, socks, blankets, bed. When I leave the house, I dart between between soak and saturation.
Don't get me wrong, we’re okay. The world feels mean and nervous, but we’re safe. But it’s not enough, is it? We’re not safe, not happy, if our neighbors are hungry, hurt, frightened.
The alarms are blasting. But the silence is stilling.
I’m trying to stay awake to the world. But it wears — this rain, this worry, this steady unease.
* * *
But, how are you?
* * *
At the crowded coffeeshop yesterday, a stranger motions to an empty chair.
How easy it is to offer a place at the small table between us. She is quiet and contained but when I tender a question, she unfolds.
This happened, that happened. From Mexico to New York, Colorado to Oregon. Securing a job, saving for a car, getting a license, missing family, learning a language.
I’m eager to practice my Spanish but she wants to practice her English, and she is so open and eager that I tuck my slim knowledge away. We are surrounded by action — rushing, ringing, talking, calling — and here we are, two strangers leaning in to listen.
I am fixed on this exchange, the ease of her telling, the ease of my nods and encouragements. How easy it is to listen, to be present, without pressure or expectation.
I like my life, she tells me, as if surveying the contents of a purse spilled.
After a time without hurry, we gather to go, share names, shake hands, and return to our individual lives.
All night, with envy and awe, I think of her contentment.
* * *
We study happiness like it’s a formula we can solve, a friend recently said to me.
Once, I imagined a writing project in which I would send a letter that contained just three questions: Are you happy? What is happiness? How did you get there?
I imagined the letters I’d receive in return: long thoughtful responses, secrets to success, maps to happiness.
I never sent the letter. I don’t know if you are happy.
* * *
When someone deeply listens to you, writes John Fox, the room where you stay starts a new life and the place where you wrote your first poem begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
* * *
Once, I wrote a poem that turned to pieces.
Once, I stopped saying aloud the quiet questions inside.
Once, I sat with a stranger and let her tell me what she had to give, what I had not asked but eagerly received.
Ask Me
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.
I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.
— William Stafford
Thank you, friend, for listening.
With love & appreciation,
Drew
* * *
It’s Thankful Thursday (on Tuesday, because sometimes you have to rise when gratitude arrives) — a weekly pause to express appreciation for people, places, things, and more. Attention attracts gratitude, and gratitude expands joy. Please join me.
What are you thankful for today?