Well, you can see I've fallen by the way-side on my paved super-highway to you-know-where, best intentions still weighing me down! And today, I'm not even posting my own words, but those of my husband, in honor of his birthday. He wrote this four years ago in response to an assignment at a summer workshop, and I think it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
WHERE I COME FROM by John Howell
I am from a home that resonated with the arts like a deep chamber
full of harmonic voices and sounds,
Where magic was built into life from the beginning,
Where Christmas mornings shimmered with unexpected treasures.
The creative spark was nurtured in every soul as my parents listened to my hippie siblings playing their music with more than mere tolerance.
full of harmonic voices and sounds,
Where magic was built into life from the beginning,
Where Christmas mornings shimmered with unexpected treasures.
The creative spark was nurtured in every soul as my parents listened to my hippie siblings playing their music with more than mere tolerance.
As I grew, I could explore a wide outdoor world on hot summer days,
a dog, my only companion. Imaginary worlds opened up
before my bare feet, and stories took shape in my inner life.
My home was an island in a calm, stagnant sea of lazy Southern complacency,
Where shallow pleasantness was meant to hide the crimes of the past,
Where nothing was to be learned that was not practical.
(And yet everything I learned was not practical.)
Where shallow pleasantness was meant to hide the crimes of the past,
Where nothing was to be learned that was not practical.
(And yet everything I learned was not practical.)
I have been back to treasure nostalgia, finding little to recognize, apart from home.
And even at home, the shadows are clearer that once were only small patches of coldness.
Our scars are revealed, but the flaws make us richer.
I have been to classes to learn about acting, and found the acting partner for the play of my life.
And I have sunk into her life and found another deep ocean where new families swim,
and new sparks light the skies around us.
I am going to a place, if there is one, where I can finally put thoughts and experiences
into weak words, without fear of their inadequacy.
I am going to a stage where the dramas performed are the stories of myself and my loved ones.
We have entertained each other for so long.
And to the children around me, I will pass on my favorite gift:
the delight of creation,
the thrill of connection,
the wonder of the music I have heard throughout my life.
1 comment:
Dear Lord, Diana. I didn't think I could like you OR your husband more than I already did, no matter how much I tried - there was just an already ridiculously high adoration level - but those words may have miraculously taken me up another notch. (Your other post, as well. Welcome back to the blog.)
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