• I have not posted since May, questioning if any words could hold a truth sufficiently poignant to penetrate our cultural and political battle lines, even for a moment’s insight.  In addition, what words of solace would be sufficient for so much sacrifice and loss attending the arrival of the virus?
       
      Gratefully, with the new year turning, a muse for the morning appeared, pushing my fear aside, at least for the moment.  In a compilation of selections from her many works, [1] Toni Morrison’s reflections on writing itself remind me why I continue to try.
       
      All water has a perfect memory
      and is forever trying to get back
      to where it was.  Writers are like that:
      remembering where we were,
      what valley we ran through,
      what the banks were like,
      the light that was there and the route back
      to our original place. 

      And then, she captures the aspiration of those of us intrigued by words and the quest of combining them in ways that reveal new awareness.
       
      There, in the process of writing,
      was the illusion, the deception of control,
      of nestling up ever closer to meaning. 

      Perhaps the most moving reminder to each of us during this season of continuing loss is a pro-active response within our power to undertake.
       
      It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody
      long before they leave you. 

      Separated by distances, masks and quarantines, whom do we miss?  What gestures of outreach and connection might it take to “miss them” long before we leave each other?


      [1] The Measure of Our Lives: A Gathering of Wisdom (Alfred K. Knopf, 2019), pp. 29, 26 and 28.