I will not die an unlived live
Posted on | November 4, 2007 | 8 Comments
I read through your comments and what resonates most is this: wait to have a second child until nothing else seems right. There are so many different ways to look at the same picture, tilting and turning the image until it fits what we imagine for ourselves.
It’s the imagining that matters. The taking of steps. The risk in doing so. We can never really know where our life will take us. The outcome is more illusive than four leaf clovers tucked among the grass. We cannot be sure we’ll be at the right spot to pluck them up and pocket them—cannot for that matter be sure that we won’t gather an armful of lilies instead. It’s the attempt that matters.The effort that goes into charting the course and then leaping into bright blue space.
Right now this feels right: my small family of the three of us, tucked away here on a hilltop at the end of a long valley. We’re just getting the hang of us. Here. Last year was like a bruise, with so much energy scattered helter-skelter that we’re still just hoping to make it through the winter, gathered around our wood stove, drinking coffee over breakfast.
I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of failing or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
Dawna Markova
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8 Responses to “I will not die an unlived live”
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November 5th, 2007 @ 9:15 am
ppst- check the title for a silly spelling mistake!
Have a good day friend
November 5th, 2007 @ 10:06 am
You’ve come to the same thinking I would have expressed, and much more eloquently.
Baby voodoo will whisper in your ear one day, then tap you on the shoulder the next. Then one night you’ll sit bolt upright from a dead sleep with a jonesing for maternity clothes. This kind of magic can’t be forced as much as it can’t be denied. It’s such a cliche, but you will just know. In the meantime, relish in your one-Bean world.
I love that quote, by the way. I found it on your bog ages ago, sitting in the hospital late one night after being told Liam would be so severely disabled. Microsoft put the icon on my very sparse desktop entitled ‘i will not die an unlived life’. I’ve kept it there, almost the only thing on the front screen of this laptop. I like being reminded of those words every day. They call to me, maybe even more so now that he’s gone. And I can see they call to you too. I’m glad, and thanks for sharing them.
November 5th, 2007 @ 10:51 am
as usual, very beautifully spoken…
And a similar realization to where I am at… Beautiful…
November 5th, 2007 @ 2:02 pm
I hesitated to comment yesterday because I do not have children. But I am an only child, and an only grandchild. Now, granted, it’s all I’ve known, but I absolutely loved being an only child and never felt lonely. I learned how to fill up my spaces with my own imagination. I’m rarely bored, as well.
So, if part of the pressure you were feeling was, “My kid has to have a sibling,” you may not need to feel that pressure.
I love your blog. I’m glad you’re going to write each day this month. Wish it were a 100-day month.
November 5th, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
November 5th, 2007 @ 9:04 pm
no prob girlfriend!
November 5th, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
Wow. I love that poem. Something I wouldn’t mind reading every day.
Why does it have to be so hard to decide which path we want to take in life? My problem is I get too overwhelmed by the choices. So much life to live, yet I often get paralyzed when it comes down to making a choice. What if I don’t get the order quite right and miss out on some opportunity…
Don’t mean to bog you down with my neurosis, really I just wanted to thank you for your beautiful words.
It helps bring some clarity to my world.
November 10th, 2007 @ 8:02 pm
“We’re just getting the hang of us.”
This is so true for what I feel too. Something about those specific words struck me. Needed to read them I think.
And I love that quote – one of my favorites.