blessings

As I sit on my new back porch typing this, I am overwhelmed with the blessings in my life. I came home this evening to two amazing women, Maggie and Jenkins, sitting here, having just put the final touches on my house before it goes on my neighborhood's home tour tomorrow. These women have done more for me this spring, this year, than I can ever fully thank them for. Their generosity, optimism, beauty, and laughter have helped make one of my most uncertain years not only bearable but joyful. And the miraculous thing is that they are two in a long list of amazing women in my life who have done this for me. My mother, my sister, my girlfriends, my neighbors, my colleagues, my mentors - I wish I could name you all here. Know that I am sitting in the midst of the tenderest gratitude for all of you.

Maggie gave me this Mary Oliver poem, and I love it because it is, in some ways, the reverse of her poem, "The Journey." I've been on the latter, believe me, and now I get to enjoy a different sort of journey altogether...

"Thirst"
Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. I walk out to the pond and all the way God has given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord, I was never a quick scholar but sulked and hunched over my books past the hour and the bell; grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart. Who knows what will finally happen or where I will be sent, yet already I have given a great many things away, expecting to be told to pack nothing, except the prayers which, with this thirst, I am slowly learning.