Whenever I walk by a hospital and happen to see a patient staring out the window of their room, it’s a custom of mine to wave at them. Usually they don’t respond but sometimes they do, and from the street I can see their silhouette, backlit as if from behind a scrim, waving back at me, the IV line swinging beneath their arm.
This always makes me smile.
I like to imagine that I’ve just reminded somebody that they’re still alive and a part of the world, that they’re still connected.
Obviously, and for all sorts of authentic and immovable reasons, not everybody feels connected to the lives they’re leading, especially during the holidays. It’s a cliché, but each year is a mysterious wash of unpredictable events that often lead us far from the course we would have set out for ourselves.
The world we live in is broken. We lose people we love, we incur wounds that change us in unrecoverable ways and even our own life can feel frustratingly impenetrable, even unwanted.
At various points, we’re all going to find ourselves somewhere we never wanted or expected to be, feeling unattached and vulnerable to the external world.
This too shall pass.
Anything can and will happen, we just have to keep our eyes open and find the light wherever it presents itself.
Whether you know it or not, there are people rooting for you.
As the New Year rises, I want to express my gratitude for the truly blessed life that I’m lucky enough to live, and for all those, particularly Rachelle, who help sustain me and make each day so damn rich, interesting and alive.
Thank you all.
And for those of you upon whom I have yet to impose this, I present “Of Love” by Mary Oliver, a beautiful and wise poem to carry into the New Year.
Of Love
I have been in love more times than one,
thank the Lord. Sometimes it was lasting
whether active or not. Sometimes
it was all but ephemeral, maybe only
an afternoon, but not less real for that.
They stay in my mind, these beautiful people,
or anyway beautiful people to me, of which
there are so many. You, and you, and you,
whom I had the fortune to meet, or maybe
missed. Love, love, love, it was the
core of my life, from which, of course, comes
the word for the heart. And, oh, have I mentioned
that some of them were men and some were women
and some—now carry my revelation with you—
were trees. Or places. Or music flying above
the names of their makers. Or clouds, or the sun
which was the first, and the best, the most
loyal for certain, who looked so faithfully into
my eyes, every morning. So I imagine
such love of the world—its fervency, its shining, its
innocence and hunger to give of itself—I imagine
this is how it began.