I bear burdens

they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket

of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me

in fragrance. I can
eat as I go.

(final fragment from Denise Levertov’s Stepping Westward)

This was the week I began to crumble, pulled towards the overwhelm of the unknown more so than to allow myself to shelter into the source of my strength ... this is the week I may have watched way too much Ozark.. It’s kind of like when you have children: for better for worse, you make a lot of mistakes with your first, your starter child, because you’ve never done this before. So too pandemics.

When Evan was born, I received sage advice from their pediatrician, “There will be days when you feel like killing your child. I mean don’t do it, but know that it’s okay to feel that way.” Becoming a mother, getting sober, ending a marriage ... everyone’s life is filled with firsts, and no one said the act of living was going to be easy...but it’s still a path. It’s messy and complicated and all the more extraordinary, because it is still life.

We all have a path marked and measured with both stumbling blocks, as well as stepping stones. I can remind myself to be gentle, and that any experiences can be met with a quiet determination, rather than as merely something to be endured. It’s a practice; it’s my practice, that allows me to begin again.

This morning Noah and I are savoring this sour dough, for there are blessings in our burdens, in the bitter and the sweet. We are choosing to be gentle for “in fragrance, (we) can eat as (we) go.”