I took this photo today from my bedroom window:
Beyond my backyard is the African Cemetery #2. I was struck this afternoon by how it looked. Snow covered.
I stumbled upon this today….
To attribute to the Muse a special fondness for pain is to come too close to desiring and cultivating pain.
It’s a Wendell Berry quote I found in a book by Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic. She goes on to say this:
My desire to work-my desire to engage with my creativity as intimately and as freely as possible-is my strongest personal incentive to fight back against pain, by any means necessary, and to fashion a life for myself that is as sane and healthy and stable as it can possibly be.
But that’s only because of what I have chosen to trust, which is quite simply: love.
Love over suffering, always.
Which is interesting to me. Ernest Hemingway said, “Write long and clear about what hurts.” So many musicians and artists and creatively bent people use their sadness as the foundation of their work. It’s what they build on and draw from. And isn’t pain so much easier to feel than love? Pain is real. We can point to the source. The reason we are experiencing it. But love? How often do we deny ourselves? Or question if it’s authentic? Or fear that feeling it will only end up bringing pain? So why not skip love and go straight to the hurt? Or at least to numbness. Yet, “love over suffering, always”? Maybe?
Snow day. Which brings about a different sort of schedule. Not exactly what I had planned. I’m not sure why but I am more contemplative when the ground is covered in snow. Maybe because everything moves slower. Not as much is expected. Permission granted for the mind to wander.
Perspective. The view out my back window is different than……everyone’s. We generally don’t know [here in Lexington] if it will be a snow day until 5:30am.
Nighttime and the view doesn’t look so good. Unclear. Murky. Changed.
We don’t know what we’re going to feel until…. and then we have to choose.
Upon a Sunny Day 