Thank you — it did!

This line from September, the First Day of School by Howard Nemerov:

“I know my hope, but do not know its form.”

True, no? I have in my mind what hope, or distress, or success, or failure… would feel or look like. I have formed some mental concept of what form they might take in a given circumstance, what might be “good” and what might be “bad.”. Yet what I have in my mind is nothing more than that, a concept, a thought, my own mental construct. I create those despite my experiennce that life constantly surprises me in its delivery. Sometimes “failure” has arrived looking like “success,” or as often, “success” arrives looking like “failure.”

“I know my hope, but do not know its form.”

Photo of a recent Austin early morning sky. The dappled pinkish hue in the sky doesn’t show up as well in the photo as in person, but then that may be part of DeMello’s point. Text from Anthony DeMello One Minute Wisdom.

I’m pretty sure I have used this in the past, but it was in my “ready to go” folder, so here it is — possibly again.

Photo taken a few years back from a kayak on the Frio River at Laity Lodge, near Leakey, Texas.

Photo taken in Galveston this summer, may have even used it previously. Can’t say the sentiment is one I religiously adhere to, but it is gaining ground.

Galveston photo, quote pulled from a Google black hole.

Galveston photo (note the brown sand and seaweed) taken on an early morning run, when this thought occurred to me.

“You have an appointment with life, an appointment that is in the here and now.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh

It occurs to me that the focus on other appointments, future or past, distracts from the appointment of central importance – the one “in the here and now.”

Accidental photo. Text from the poem Summer Storm by Dana Gioai. See the full text below.:

Summer Storm

We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.

We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.

The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.

To my surprise, you took my arm–
A gesture you didn’t explain–
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.

Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.

I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn’t speak another word
Except to say goodnight.

Why does that evening’s memory
Return with this night’s storm–
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?

There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won’t stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.

Photo taken at my desk at home. Text from a Mary Oliver poem, Blue Iris.