Saturday Evening Poetry

I’m here at my desk in our little cottage tucked in among the trees. I’m wearing pj’s and an old cardigan sweater while I munch lasagna and salad from a local Italian restaurant and listen to folk music on the computer. Tom is in the other room watching television and flipping back and forth between NASCAR racing and Olympic curling, two things I can leave more than take; so I’m free to sit here and write.

It’s been a difficult week of too much work not done, too much worry about my sick mother, too many visits to accountants, too much ice and snow, and a touch of stomach flu. It’s the very last few days of February and I’ve reached the end of my tolerance for winter, I simply can not wait for it to be gone!

But tonight it’s warm and cozy in the house, most of what bothered me during the week is behind me, and we have nothing pressing to do, nowhere we need to go; leaving me free to “jammie-up” early and contemplate poetry.

I’ve been thinking lately about my life and how I am perhaps not doing the most ideal job of managing it. I still feel so frantically overwhelmed much of the time, I waste too many of my hours in the company of people I don’t care about, doing things I’m not passionate about; leaving too little time for my life’s desires; to see people I long to be with.

Tonight, in my quiet den, I’m writing about the western National Parks that we have visited. When I give myself time to think about those places, I remember the sense of peace I feel whenever we are there. Certainly much of that calm probably comes from having no list of chores and priorities, but a lot comes from the great expanses, the far off vistas that make it nearly impossible to feel closed in. That make issues like deadlines, meetings and a parent’s mortality seem manageable some how, as if they will all fall into place in God’s good time, without further bruising my soul.

One early evening last May we were spending time in Arches National Park and it was raining off and on. Arched over Balanced Rock, in perfect contrast to the navy blue sky, was a rainbow. I stopped to talk to a ranger for a few minutes. She said that Arches was not always as perfect as it was that evening. It could be very hot and many rescues of over-come hikers were needed during the summer season.

But not that day.

“Today is a good day to be a ranger,” she said.

On the road outside our home, cars travel by occasionally heading off for perhaps a more exciting Saturday evening. But inside I sit and contemplate poetry. I decide to take that ranger’s bit of advice and apply it to my life. It won’t always be easy. It will get very hot and many rescues may be needed.

But not this day.

Today is a good day to be a writer.