Contentment
My sister sent me this poem today. To me it is such a good reminder to be present where I’m at, to enjoy the familiarity of my home & city & family, to appreciate the unfolding beauty around me, and to fully participate in the experiences of today. It’s incredibly easy for me to get caught up in wishing for a life of traveling to new places and having opportunities easily unfold before me. However, when I reflect on my life right now I am able to find contentment in the richness of what I am blessed with through my husband, my family, our home, and our community. I am thankful for familiarity & routine and love the reminder in this poem to open our eyes to what is already surrounding us.
How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.
There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon’s
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.
How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyes camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?
Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.
And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car
as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.
Consolation
by Billy Collins
Transition
Today marks day 9 of not working since I quit my full-time job. My 40-hour/week job was The Good Job. You know, the one that pays well, has awesome benefits, is close to my house without much traffic, and includes fun co-workers. The only problem with my Good Job is that it is not life-giving. In fact, it was a daily drain on my energy reserves. I started to feel like I was a hamster stuck in a wheel - going through the exhausting motions of getting up, going to the gym, going to work for 9 hours, going home, making dinner, packing the next days lunch, going to bed. Repeat.
I worried a little bit about leaving a full-time work schedule. Would I get bored? Would I be at loose ends all day?
But something remarkable has happened. Instead of wondering what to do by myself all day, I have stepped into what feels like the most natural, life-giving role that I’ve been in. My desire to be with people & invest in friendships has returned… and I have made new friends. I don’t have to focus on conserving my energy to make it through the day… instead I can devote energy to supporting my husband, cultivating my home, and exploring the gifts that God has given me. Stress & anxiety have ebbed away… I don’t have to fit everything into it’s perfect little spot in the day and I’m able to more naturally go with the flow. In short, I have stopped having to cut off parts of who I am to cram myself into a square box and I can now breathe and enjoy the margins in my life.
What is a way - simple or complex - that you’ve transitioned in the past in order to create “breathing room” in your life or to follow a dream?
I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
