Notes for a New Year and Decade

 

Collect yourself, all the parts.

System by system link the pieces.

Mothering sustains poetry sustains friendship sustains marriage sustains earth.

Begin, attempt, try to allow yourself permission for not knowing. Allow the ground to give way under your feet at the thought of it.

When it comes to writing, may it first be listening, second be seeing.

Let it be wonder, third, and understanding last.

See your daughters safely to womanhood. Walk beside them while you can, and a little behind them when the time comes.

Carry an empty basket. Keep it as empty as you possibly can.

Show up for the protests, but remember, the resistance takes place in situ. 

Birds. It’s time to learn their names. And maybe how to read their flight for messages from the gods.

No, their flight is the gods.

And in the darkness: hold your prayer beads, murmur your prayers, enter the deep stillness that awaits.

Dostoevsky. Lots of Dostoevsky.

Become a map maker of inner and outer landscapes. Travel by way of pen, boots, poetry, Volkswagen bus, paper.

Witness.

Before setting out, do not think you already know what it is you will find along the way.

Face the future and the page and all the hard places with deep imagination.

Let your descendants whisper to you about what they love in the world they inherit.

Watch for the bend.

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Thank you for the inspiration, Tonia Peckover!