There is light

Photo credit: Sarah Taylor

It has been hard to write lately. I feel thoughts swirling around in my head like spun sugar: shape-shifting, fragile, ephemeral, though not sweet at all. There is so much to say, yet nothing settles enough to articulate clearly.

Even my go-to grounding strategies feel slightly out of reach. It has taken me a good month to claw myself back from no-meditation-due-to-stress to sitting every day again, at first 5 minutes, then 10, now 15.

My daily walk also disappeared from one day to the next from overwhelm. There too, I am slowly leaning into what I know will make me feel present again: a steadying hand on a tree-trunk, a hot cup of cocoa on the bench, following the swallows with my eyes as they dip over the lake.

We get to live in hard times. The manifest lack of empathy, the clear separation from togetherness and love. The grief is so palpable it feels almost physical. Every moment, it seems, more wanton hatred unveils itself.

But then all times are hard for someone. And all times carry change, including the possibility of transformation towards the world we need. As I sat this morning I let that truly heretical thought pass through me: this is our chance to rebuild better, to break down the siloes that dehumanize us, to realize that this beautiful earth truly is enough for all.

I can’t even write it without rolling my eyes. But the thought stays with me through the day, a grounding lump of concrete hope in the swirling morass of my brain.

There is light.