the bucket
When I look out the window, it looks wintry, the colors pale, the trees like skeletons. But I’ve seen daffodils along the highway, I’ve seen crocuses on the outskirts of town, the baby daffodils out front are peeking through. Around me, I see hints of the fullness to come.
We have what I feel sure is our last snowstorm, two inches maybe, the snow melting within three days. After the snow, sun and mild temperatures, then rain. While I’m a lover of winter, I am ready for spring.
Things float through my awareness. Kindnesses and tragedies, constrictions and clearings, silences and callings. It’s hard, some days, to know where to stand, how to stand, if it’s best to even stand. Maybe we should all lie down and rest, release what doesn’t serve.
I lie down, in the still-dark of the morning, a meditation for peace and compassion. I endeavor to release what doesn’t serve, including thoughts of others that are not mine to hold or presume. It’s not easy to let go of some things, like stories we’ve carried for an eternity. But some stories stop jiving, stop fitting, the costumes tight and confining. Eternity shifts. In the still-dark of the morning I clear and set the stage for something other. I set the stage for fullness.
I read a quote from John McPhee, winner of a Pulitzer. He’s published 29 books, yet supposedly he rarely writes more than five hundred words a day. He says: People say to me, ‘Oh, you’re so prolific’ …God, it doesn’t feel like it—nothing like it. But, you know, you put an ounce in a bucket each day, you get a quart.
I place intentions into my bucket. I toss in a poem or two, many lists, a few photographs, a loaf of freshly baked bread. I tip a glass over the edge of the bucket, adding trust. Bucket in hand, I feel the weight increasing, feel the fullness. An ounce a day, I can manage that.
To stay on the map you’ve got to keep showing up.
~ Peter Gallagher ~
P.S. I spent time with beautiful women the other day for March's online gathering of The Quiet Page. #luckyme
Registration for next month's gathering is open now; we'll be meeting Wednesday, April 20. Can't make the live online class? There's a digital option Just For You. Come write with us, and enjoy some quiet. Hop over here for all the details.