It was easy to love things. Birds, the flutter of branches,
my husband who always has to be right.
I thought, I will lose all of this. I hugged my cats more.
I watched less television, except for comedies, which drugged
me to sleep at night. Stupid 1950's sci-fi films, especially.
Maybe I loved them too. I loved poetry and wrote almost every day,
thinking, I do not have time to write. The lights would flicker
and threaten outages. How like our bodies these power lines are,
reliable until they are not: eaten by rats or rammed by cars at random.
You see how I thought everything was profound: my Netflix
recommendations, passing a woman on the street and smiling at each other.
I ate a lot more pancakes, something I hadn't done since childhood.
I thought, maybe there will be a miracle. Maybe I will have more time.
A temporary grant of extension. I will still do taxes and fill out forms
at the doctor's office. I will have time to be mad at traffic.
I will stop petting random dogs. I will have time to stop
noticing when the hummingbird or deer or Steller's jay pauses
to look in my eyes, that moment before. That's the thing
about having time. You miss so much.
--Jeannine Hall Gailey
No comments:
Post a Comment