I was surprised by the date of my last blog and that it was Barbara Kingsolver’s poem, How to do absolutely nothing. That seems like a lot of inactivity ago. My daily writing practices have dwindled this summer.  Several times I’ve resolved to be more disciplined because writing changes me.  However, I write a few lines in my notebook and then I simply try to get to the other side of whatever is looming.

I’ve been traveling for family things and tagging along during Mitch’s work trips. And, I’ve been reading a lot.  From the middle of May until late July, I was gone for a month and a half of days. That’s disruptive for my body and mind imagining the safety of home. The stories I read along the way provided a comfortable place to be.

I found two lines from a much longer poem by W. H. Auden in a mystery novel I was reading. The lines felt right despite not knowing the larger context.

And we are introduced to Goodness everyday,

Even in the drawing rooms among a crowd of faults.

From “Herman Melville” by W.H. Auden

I would like to meet Goodness every day, among my own crowd of faults. 

A wise professor I knew many years ago warned our class about “cherry picking,” lifting up the part from someone else’s work that meets our own needs.  While that may be true in citing research, I don’t believe that admonishment holds for poetry or any literature for that matter.  Language is malleable and shifting and illuminates what we cannot exactly see or name in our own crowd of distractions.

Traveling puts many of my faults on display—uncertainties—too many of them without the comforts of home.  The furniture is too unfamiliar for me to settle in.  When I am always on alert, it is not easy to relax.  And then, I am tacitly reminded of the faults of others that divert my attention away from my own.

Anticipating uncertainties, whether known or unknown, is one of my challenges. I anticipate time with family will rekindle my failings. Daily routines are obscured by someone else’s schedule. I’m unsure how to “help” when helping, which probably means I’m trying to fix rather than support. I forget to just listen. The trouble is that I tend to turn all those uncertainties into problems instead of possibilities.

Why are my frailties my default mode?  I’ll give you an innocuous example. This summer, I have Willow Beach weather conditions on speed dial (actually a click on my cell phone.)  You see, I believe that even a prediction will protect me from the unknown if I’m going out in the water, where I need reassurance.  Last year, when I finally got the courage to paddleboard instead of longingly watch, I just went. I put on the clothes I already had that seemed cold water-worthy and trusted the process. 

Now, in addition to checking the temperatures and wind speed, I search the water when I arrive for signs of water movement.  Is the tide high or low?  Does the water look dull and gray or bright and inviting?  Are there ripples on the water and a swell toward the shore?  Is the hotel’s flag still in the distance or blowing in the wind? Granted I need to be safe but my diligence steals the wonder of my surroundings that are full of life.

The truth is that I paddle with people and places I can trust.  If it is too windy, we change our location to the more inland waterway. If the wind comes up while we are out, we adjust our route to hug a shoreline or stay on our knees. I’m never alone and the few times I have fallen, I’ve gotten back on my board with kind encouragement. 

Perhaps, I do not appreciate the rhythms of my life after all these years of self-conscious fretting; concerning myself with what isn’t mine to hold or figure out.

Whether Auden’s poetic phrase came from his own or another’s experience, the words help me make sense of my own.

Introduced suggests newness that is not of my own making.  And I am introduced to Goodness every day, not because I am looking but because God’s Goodness is looking for me.