more love and rain

Writing out of freedom and not bondage is kind of like perfection.

Springtime rains do not make me miserable. Water falls from the sky in little drops, lots, all over, and it touches everything. There is nothing it does not find. Sometimes you can trick the rain by making it fall on something else before it gets to you, and you stay dry. But it takes so much effort to be completely not wet when it rains. It takes a lot of staying and covering. There is something beautiful about being the same person whether the rain has full access to you or not.

The ice storm ravaged us. It took limb from tree and dashed it to the ground. It thrashed the weak and bent the strong. It was grievous and tragic. Little did it know that life and love are stronger than death--the rain falls on everything, and there is so much green. Green is everywhere; new hope springs from the scars of the ruined.

It seems that being a person is a full-time job until others depend on you full-time. Then you work overflowing-time, and there is no way to do it unless lives are the same, twine together, love together, abide in the same Vine. There is no choosing your family, past nor future, but there is choosing to bend and live with them. There is no choosing whom, but there is choosing how. It takes so much dying to self, so much cutting off of those directions of self-will that try to sprout and grow--and it would be admirable and glittery to allow them and follow them, but so, so lonely. (Not killing those dreams of your heart that are true and right and divine, but trusting that they will come about in due time.) That is why love is so earthy and organic and gardeny. It hurts so good.

Sometimes the birds get at the strawberries even though you made chicken-wire covers for your pots. i know from experience. There is a lot that i write that i don't know from experience, i just look and see, and then think i have known. i hope there is some truth in it somewhere--how else am i to live? Living takes faith, i suppose. And writing does.

Where are you, voice?