Saturday, December 31, 2011

This year


"Leroy says, ah, keep on rockin', girl. Yeah, keep on rockin'."

This year I remembered...I have faerie folk in my lineage.

Previously, poetry grabbed me by "the sharp lapels of my checkered coat" and this year a teacher/friend/mentor/poet/angel appeared who reminds me that I can know with my heart and need not care so much about gaps in my formal education, yet steadily, subversively, affectionately, addresses them as well.

Those who would be called angels are abundant in my life, shoring up the still-skeletal hull of this vessel I decided to build in my second-floor living room. I have their unspoken promises to help me launch it. For today, we are not required to know how. It seems I have what I need to do my work. This year delivered my two assignments: show up and get out of the way.

It is a job of paring, paring, discarding and evaluating, finding how to keep the good from being siphoned off for no purpose. This year I have begun to see options where before there appeared to be none. I make my best choice and reserve the right to change my mind.

This year, as do all my years and other measures of time, evaporated. I am less and less inclined to count or quantify, growing closer to allowing events to unfold as they do. Unfolding is not a process to be hurried. Trusting it is no job for the impatient. At times the fluid quality of my days hisses at me about idleness. It may be true but I now have just the one speed and am learning not to call it by unloving names.

There have been miracles this year, as there have in years past, whether I recognized them in the moment or needed distance to clear my vision. Either I've relaxed my earlier definition of the miraculous or, as I suspect, it is ever more plentiful. What more could be asked of any year?

16 comments:

T. said...

"There have been miracles this year, as there have in years past, whether I recognized them in the moment or needed distance to clear my vision."

"Trusting is no job for the impatient."

Thank you for these.

Lessons and advice that I need to hear every day.

I wish you the best in this new year, my eloquent and wise friend!

xo

Marylinn Kelly said...

T. - Thank you. My best to you, as well. You have weathered very turbulent times and here you still are. Sometimes our greatest achievement is enduring. xo

Melissa Green said...

Dear Marylinn, a beautiful and moving post. The Universe has been good to you, as you, to your surprise, discover you deserve and conserve. The speed of absorption is always, necessarily slow. It could not be otherwise. And there are miracles waiting in the wings to find you and bring their loving light. You have not only had miracles brought to you, you have been instrumental in creating them for yourself. Mazel tov, dear friend, and Happiest of New Years. xo

susan t. landry said...

as i always say, well not really, but from now on i will:
angels is as angels does.


i am super mega way behind in everything, but loved your boosterism re: the US postal services; and i also love to death "it is what it is."

count me among the trying to get off the ground/i just need a running start
angel wannabes.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Melissa - Thank you and a wonderful, Happy New Year to you as well. I am grateful that slow is not an abnormal speed, for it seems to be the one with which I am most familiar. xo

Marylinn Kelly said...

Susan - So glad you liked "it is what it is." Thank you re: USPS. Gravity is all too real and getting off the ground, well, we all need a running start and suspension of natural laws. See you in the air. xo

Erin in Morro Bay said...

For years I've loved Michelle Shocked! The poetry in her work is truly marvelous and has a way of reaching into your heart. Certainly not a bad way to begin a new year.
As is reading your always wise and thoughtful words. Happy New Year.
Erin

Marylinn Kelly said...

Erin - So have I, loved this song in particular, could not easily connect it to some theme, other than its buoyant sensibility, which was enough. It felt like a good start. Happy New Year. xo

37paddington said...

So so much wisdom here. And as so often happens when I read here, that last graph is a knockout. Thank you, dear Marylinn, for the rich perspective.

Antares Cryptos said...

The journey IS the destination, isn't it.
Thank you for another great post.
Happy New Year.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Angella - Thank you and Happy New Year. It is an endless process of sifting and sorting, isn't it? xo

Marylinn Kelly said...

Antares - I hope the New Year holds little or no frustration and lots of time for what matters. Thank you for being part of a very rich 2011. :)

Rubye Jack said...

Thank goodness for those miracles and may they continue to be there for us. I enjoyed the Shocked song.

Marylinn Kelly said...

Rubye - I'm glad you liked "Anchorage." I love its tempo, energy, a simplicity of emotion...we never know what's going to catch us, do we? And as for the miracles, yes, may they continue for us all. xo

Kerry O'Gorman said...

Most valuable advice Marylinn. Be in the moment. Go with the flow...whatever you call it. It's all good. And thanks for bringing this song back to me. It was a song that an old friend and I used as 'our song' only we changed the words to suit us. Yes, keep on rockin' girl!

Marylinn Kelly said...

Kerry - It is a great friends song, glad you found it here. There is a flow and things become simpler when we surrender to it. No longer so interested in swimming against the tide. xo