In Blackwater Woods

The past couple of weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster ride. The highs have been fantastic and have been wrapped up mostly in the baby who is now doing somersaults in my belly. I've started prenatal yoga, and this small step of self-nurture has been absolutely golden, completely necessary and fulfilling, and yet another beautiful way for me to connect with baby. We had an incredibly productive day last weekend where we unpacked enough of the right stuff to finally feel like we truly live here. Now all of my inspirational books have been moved onto a new bookcase in the bedroom, the beginnings of a new reading nook we're creating in there. It all feels so good.

The lows have surrounded love and loss and probably a fair amount of nostalgia. I went to visit my family in Georgia and spent a couple of days with my grandparents on my mother's side. They spend their days remembering how things used to be, resisting the way things are now, and are slowly slipping away into Alzheimer's and senility. My last few visits, I've been highly conscious of how this may be the last, and so I try to soak up as much as I can while I am there, but it is easy to slip into a place of nostalgia, of remembering the good ol' days through the rosy veil that memory provides. Home again, I find my uncle scanning in old pics of my father's family, including some true gems of my early days with my grandfather, who made his transition several years ago now. The pictures make me smile, but also bring tears to my eyes as I remember just how much I miss him.

Life truly is a cycle, and these past couple of weeks have been full of the reminder that this new life in my belly in some respects replaces life that has come before. Individuals ebb and flow into our lives, and we are truly blessed to be touched by so many. Now that my books have been freed from their two-month bondage in boxes, I was pleased to be able to pull Risking Everything back off the shelf and uncover a wonderful poem by Mary Oliver that connects with the feelings tumbling around within me. Her words remind me of the power of love in this ephemeral world. Enjoy, and namaste.

In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars

of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,

the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders

of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is

nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Photo: "1930's postcards- in sepia," originally uploaded by aussiegall