BY JOELLEN COLLINS
I have been experiencing a time of great ups and downs while considering major changes in my later life. For years I have tucked away pieces of paper with relevant quotes or articles, and one of them slipped out of a box full or pieces I may or may not keep. It perfectly summarizes what I hope to achieve today, staying steady emotionally during simultaneous highs and lows. This Pueblo Indian Prayer shows me the way. Here it is.
“Hold on to what is good, even if it’s a handful of earth. Hold on to what you believe, even if it is a tree that stands by itself. Hold on to what you must do, even if it’s a long way from here. Hold on to my hand, even if someday I’ll be gone away from you.”
This remarkable paragraph reminds me of one of my favorite passages from Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. As Robert Jordan faces certain death waiting behind a tree trunk for the approaching enemy’s advance, his mind focuses on what his senses have helped him love in his life: “The pine trunks were hard and clear now, their trunks solid and brown and the road was shiny with a wisp of mists over it. The dew had wet him and the forest floor was soft, and he felt the give of the brown, dropped pine needles under his elbows.” Just as the “thudding of the bombs” filled the air, he “smelled the pines and he heard the stream and the bridge showed clear now and beautiful in the morning light.” Robert Jordan held on to what was good in the face of evil.
Sometimes, even when I am very aware of the blessings of a life fully lived, I lapse into honoring something less than wonderful, or fall out of my own sense of life’s joys into needless worry.
One recent afternoon I was busy and frustrated with the many chores facing me, so I took just half an hour to sit in the small red chair out on my deck and read a bit of poetry. I decided to test all my senses at that exact time in my existence. I relished the cool shade mixed with light enough to savor the beauty of literature; I could smell faintly the odor of one of the bright flowers filling up my stash of different-sized pots. And I was further blessed by my dog Suki joining me near my feet on the warm deck — a doggie caress.
I was amazed at how taking that bit of time to simply feel and see and hear and touch and smell my immediate surroundings was so restorative. The last poem I read was by Mary Oliver, called “I Worried.” It’s concluding stanza expressed my wish to behave as she did.
“Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body and went out into the morning, and sang.”
I mustn’t fail to hold on to beauty.