This morning standing on the shoreline of Carman Lake staring out at the open water I realized I was thinking – it’s not supposed to be this way the third week in January. The open water, that is. Also, thinking that it’s just so frustrating that it’s not like it used to be – snow arriving in early December and staying till the spring. That was just so reliable. And, so predictable. It dawned on me that reliability and predictability are not matters nature or weather ever concerns itself with. And, who am I to judge and say what is normal? Even if my preference is to yearn for reliability. In that moment I saw my arrogant judgement.
This realization recalled the words in a poem a friend shared on her blog in December and while the poem wasn’t about weather or nature the words are still useful. The words were:
maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, [it] is nonetheless—
persistently, abundantly, miraculously—
exactly the way it is.
Persistently, abundantly, miraculously – exactly the way it is.
This is one of my life lessons, one that I know I will be practicing for the rest of my life. Even when hiking in nature.
Here is the full poem:
The Way It Is
One morning you might wake up
to realize that the knot in your stomach
had loosened itself and slipped away,
and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart
had gradually, and without your really noticing,
been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite
the same as it was, but good enough.
And in that moment it might occur to you
that your life, though not the way
you planned it, and maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, is nonetheless—
persistently, abundantly, miraculously—
exactly the way it is.
Lyn Unger
