I have the honor of presenting two workshops and participating in a panel discussion at this year’s conference. The West Virginia Writers Conference is a blast that I just recommend enough. Find your tribe at Cedar Lakes!
Early mornings on the balcony of the rented condo. I have, quietly so others can sleep, made a pot of coffee, and poured a cup.
The cool morning air ruffles the hem of my nightgown and I sip coffee as the sun rises. Its warmth matching the colors of the sky – red and orange and gold – glimmers of light bouncing off the water.
My skin is tight and pink from yesterday’s sun and my hair is wild from restful sleep to the rhythm of the tide. I smell like coconuts and vanilla.
I get up for a second cup of coffee and my phone. I want a photo of this sunrise, just like yesterday and just like tomorrow. Each seems a mystery just for me. From darkness comes light and then color and then awe. I try to capture it never quite succeeding. I should get the good camera, but I’m too lazy to fool with lenses and aperture and fstops. The morning is too easy, too wrapped in zen for doing.
Every day, on the balcony, bearing witness to the glimmers of peace. Of hope. Of tranquility. Steeped in a cup of good coffee, its warmth echoing the sun. Every year the journey to the beach with good friends. Laughter and good food and strong sun. The occasional storm in which the mysteries of the universe ramp up the glimmer and it explodes, wiping the sand clean of footprints.
Witnessed from the balcony – my place in the early morning, my place in the evening. I begin and end my days with glimmer – sunlight on the water, moonlight on the water, the phosphorescence of breaking waves.
Glimmer.
Tennyson wrote, “I am a part of all that I have met.”
Brooke Hampton said, “I am pieces of all the places I have been, and the people I have loved. I’ve been stitched together by song lyrics, book quotes, adventure, late night conversations, moonlight, and the smell of coffee.”
I love these truths because they explain my contradictions. I’ve had a myriad of experiences in nearly as many places. I have been blessed to meet a great many people.
And while doing so, I was often wearing jeans – the uniform of my generation.
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Life is tricky baby, stay in your magic.
According to what we know about thermodynamics, bumblebees should not be able to fly. Tell that to the bee buzzing around your garden.
Be a bumble bee and vibrate to the rhythm of your impossible flight.
My yoga teacher says that our ability to walk is nothing more than beginning to fall and catching ourselves again and again. All you need is balance. Balance, I believe, is the secret to happiness. If you can offset the mundane with the magic, contentment arises. Being aware that there is both good and bad in the world, that there will be shitty days and shitty experiences followed by those little blessings of magic and miracles not to mention the times of euphoria and joy. If you can balance and keep from falling, it’s all good.
Sometime during mid-pandemic, I purged from my Facebook all of the chronically angry, sarcastic, more-concerned-with-throwing-sharp-barbs-than-uplifting people from my Facebook. What a blessing I gave myself to turn off those voices. I have my own angry, sarcastic, and pointed barbs to mute, I don’t need others broadcasting unfettered into my head. I believe we have an obligation not just to ourselves, but to others to promote the magic. Trekking through the mud and the mire slinging it about serves no purpose other than to make one feel bad and inflict that pain on others. Hurt people hurt people. Staying in one’s magic can be difficult because we’re all hurt people and there are as many ways to hurt others as to hurt oneself.
Life is tricky, stay in your magic. Don’t let the buzzkillers kill your buzz.
W. Va. Fur and Root 