Pieces, life takes out of you

Quote of the day:

Everything is miraculous. It is a miracle that one doesn't melt in one's bath. Pablo Picasso (From CCIE)

These past few days, while sitting on the beach, I have been reading Olive Kitteridge. Parts of it have moved me deeply. Especially the last page. In fact, after reading the ending, I plunged myself into the sea and wept. I could not help but identify with so many of the characters, even Olive herself:

What young people didn't know, she thought ... that lumpy, aged and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly ... No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn't choose it ... But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union ... (Page 270).

And, Elizabeth Strout about early morning ...

... he still wakes early and remembers how mornings used to be his favorite, as though the world were his secret ... (Page 3)

Well, I surely have been having fun this past week. Lying in the sun, reading, walking, biking swimming, eating fish of all shapes and sizes, breakfasts out and about, cotton candy, and enjoying talks with friends, watching the ocean as the sun sets.

[Before ... (last year in Cape May) After ... (this year in OC, NJ)]

While walking on the beach in Ocean City, I remembered a photograph that Marion took of me while walking on the beach in Cape May last year, and us both making a pledge not to drag all our weight into our sixties. Looking at the photograph on the right, taken by a kind passer-by at Ocean City recently, I realize I have almost accomplished that goal. However, it is not just the weight on my body, I have lost - it is the heaviness in my soul. I have shed so much more than weight - it seems as if this past year, I have allowed much of my shame, guilt and anger to fall away with each pound of flesh!

Indeed, this year, I feel lighter, happier, and healthier in every way - full of energy and hope, and so much joy, and, dare I say it? - Inner peace. I think that going back to work next week is probably going to be all right!

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: A letter to my child (One of my personal, most favorite posts ... still enormously relevant today, perhaps even more so - one year later)

Comments

[tamarika]

What an interesting metaphor, Donna!

Yes.

Indeed, profound.

[Donna]

I was reading the title again and it reminds me of something my father said when he began carving wooden figures. When asked how he managed such a beautiful chickadee on his first attempt, he said "I just cut away everything that didn't look like a chickadee". I thought that was profound. I learned later that he borrowed it, but it is still profound and your title Pieces Life Takes Out of You... maybe they are the pieces that "look" less and less like the real "us"? Do you understand what I mean? Maybe these are the pieces that encumber us... maybe when life is finally finished with us we are finally revealed. I don't know... it just got me thinking....