The word ‘workable’ means able to be worked, fashioned, or manipulated, and, at my wonderful age of 80, all of life now seems quite workable. Of course, what I realize now is that it’s not ‘I’ that does the fashioning or manipulating, but life – the present moment, the boundless universe itself. In fact, what this ‘I’ must do is step aside and allow life to do its marvelous artistic work. Sometimes, life’s shaping and sculpting may seem strange and disagreeable, like an ocean in a storm, but the waves and currents of life all serve a purpose beyond my understanding, and soon the storm always proves workable, and life can fashion it – if I let it – into a reality with a new kind of quietness and magnificence. I need to work on stepping back and simply observing the storms of life as they seethe, and eventually settle, into newness and insight. To boundless life, everything is workable in a wonderful way … if I can patiently watch and wait.
Below are some scenes from our very happy sunrise walk yesterday on Napatree Beach …
We took another sunrise walk this morning in Noank, up and down its hills along Fisher’s Island Sound. Around us was a silence that seemed almost sacred at that hour, and the colors in the early sky seemed silent as well. We walked with the peacefulness of people who know how blessed they are to be almost 80 years old and still walking with reasonable spryness – and how blessed to be in such a sweet place for the walk. (Below are some photos from our walk, with a haiku poem for each.)
early silent sky – ocean smiles silently – two lucky people
a brave happy tree – welcoming the rising sun – feeling fortunate
this road leads to light – one old couple follows it – smiling all the way
this house is still proud – and so are the weeds and trees – and the smiling sky
the buildings now sing – for sunlight is returning – and life lifts up again
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A BLESSING IN DISGUISE
There are times when everything seems to be a concealed blessing – even the boy in my class years ago who couldn’t seem to focus his attention on anything related to English. Usually this lad’s attention was everywhere but on what we were doing in class, but sometimes, strangely enough, I sensed that his lack of concentration would be helpful, in the long run, to both him and me. Instead of fretting about it, I often felt surprisingly positive about what it meant for both of us. For the boy, his inattentiveness would – because I would remind him about it now and again – give him something specific to work on throughout the year. It was another skill, like trapping the ball in soccer, that he could take pride in perfecting as the weeks passed. When I occasionally congratulated him after class for being attentive, he would, I hoped, have a feeling of satisfaction that he was able to accomplish a difficult feat – a feeling that would be unavailable to him were it not for his lifelong problem of inattentiveness. As for me, my student’s lack of focus was a blessing in the form of a wake-up call to remember that, frankly, 8th grade English class can be mind-numbing and utterly forgettable. No matter how carefully I planned my lessons, no matter how many exciting twists I tried to put into them, the activities of my class were often no more exciting to a teenager than activities in an empty desert. This boy may have had an unusual problem with inattentiveness, but he may also simply have been bored to death by my teaching style. A blessing of a wake-up call for Mr. Salsich: “There are a zillion things more thrilling than your English class!”
EVERYDAY MIRACLES: An Occasional Journal of a Life Lived in Wonder 