Is the birthday of my friend. My lifelong friend. She has a prodigious memory, and so nothing she and I have experienced, talked about, learned goes unremarked–at the time and years, decades later. She is the mirror I otherwise might not peer in. Even when she is not talking about something common between us or important to each/both of us, I find myself recalling such at times opportune and inopportune. I also find myself recalling my failures within our friendship, and rueing them all over again. But to rue can be healing, when I remember to not repeat that break that has been healed, when I remember that forgiveness outlasts animus.
And I am grateful for that.
I am grateful, too, that I can forgive another as well. I have that choice. I have that freedom. It is within my power.
As is repentance, recognizing how I screwed up, rueing it, asking forgiveness, promising to not repeat this mis- (mis-whatever, statement, act, thought, reaction, ….) and living the promise. Each step is hard, and each step is impossible to not do to be complete.
I am grateful for this friendship, for a friendship such as this. And I believe I have been given these gifts, and I honor each one. And at times I fail, maybe only in my mind, my thoughts, my nearly spoken words. But they are failures too, and I am sad at myself, and I berate myself, and ask, maybe only in my head, because a thought unspoken or unenacted, I don’t think, needs to be exposed, if its raising, its exposure only causes confusion. It’s wiser, it’s more honorable to can it, and not repeat, and not act on the almost act, the twitch in my expression that comes from a flawed foundation, do not twitch, no, instead understand you (I) are not that person and do not know all within that person, and you (I) are certainly not superior such that to judge is yours.
There is another recipient of my wrongs I often need to beg forgiveness, and turn around and not repeat the wrong–that is this earth on which I live. All the time, all the time I possess more than I need, and I store, and I ignore or trample, and I toss; repeat….. There is always another way I can use less, trod less, care more.
Whose woods these are
I think I know,
His house is in the village though
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
(Robert Frost, from Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening)
And this:
Next Time by Mary Oliver
Next time what I’d do is look at
the earth before saying anything. I’d stop
just before going into a house
and be an emperor for a minute
and listen better to the wind
or to the air being still.
When anyone talked to me, whether
blame or praise or just passing time,
I’d watch the face, how the mouth
has to work, and see any strain, any
sign of what lifted the voice.
And for all, I’d know more — the earth
bracing itself and soaring, the air
finding every leaf and feather over
forest and water, and for every person
the body glowing inside the clothes
like a light.
whereIwonder&why 