Keeping Quiet

You know that old saying, "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything?" It is a good one, and, quite frankly, I haven't had a lot nice to say over the past week. It is OK; these things happen from time to time. At one point I found myself thinking, "Why does there always have to be something?" and I was reminded of some reading I have been doing by Pema Chodron. In one of her books, The Wisdom of No Escape,  she talks a great deal about this concept. In her discussion (much better stated than I will paraphrase here) she explains that there is an alternative to life's constant turmoil and challenges. The alternative to having the difficult things that life can bring to us is death. Meaning that there is no hiding place for life's problems. What we need to do each time things come a long and knock us down is be willing to keep getting back up and moving forward. So that is what I am doing at this point, getting back up and moving forward.

As always in difficult times,I am grateful for the support of others. Sometimes in the moments in life when we feel the most alone it is good to know that we are not. I have also been reminded that I have been through dark places before and come out on the other side in a much better place. A place where I have been able to be extremely grateful that life intervened and put me in a place where I am surrounded by a lot of love and laughter. A favorite poem of mine is by Mary Oliver. It is called "The Uses of Sorrow."

Someone I loved once gave me

a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this, too, was a gift.

I am going to end this with one more passage from The Wisdom of No Escape . With the possible effect of having put more of someone else's words into this post than my own. It is a good one, and has been a good reminder for me that life is about experiences both positive and negative and our job is to use them well.

"What that feels like is a big wave that comes along and knocks you down. You find yourself lying on the bottom of the ocean with your face in the sand, and even though all the sand is going up your nose and into your mouth and your eyes and ears, you stand up and you begin walking again. Then the next wave comes and knocks you down. The waves just keep coming, but each time you get knocked down, you stand up and keep walking. After a while, you'll find the waves appear to be getting smaller. That's how karma works. If you keep lying there you will drown, but you don't even have the privilege of dying. You just live with the sense of drowning all the time."

Thank you to those of you who helped me stand up and remember to keep walking. The waves seem smaller already. Now can someone help me get the sand out of my ear please?