Just Another Cottage in Blogville

Pensieve - A Pool of Gifts

Sorry it's been so long - to be honest my life has been so overwhelming I have been so utterly incapacitated that I cannot write, spell, or read fluently, which is a dangerous thing. As I tell people who ask how I am, I could run two soap operas and a reality show out of my life right now. Excuses, excuses, I know, but sometimes those apparently excuses are indeed reasons.

In spite of my immobility, I have strokes of creative inspiration every now and then. Finally something broke through the dam of confusion and spiraling events that keep my head spinning and spinning and spinning - in a normal way, not hypomanic as I feared - and I wrote today. It was unfulfilling as I have not finished it, and must before I slip between the covers tonight or I will not sleep.

I write to give back. In ways that I cannot express in simple daily words I use to convey meaning through fiction and poetry - a peer through my mind and perspective and simple observations in a multi-dimensional world, and a way to give back. I want to give back. A quote from one of my heroes, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, runs through my head often:

"I have come to the conclusion that we must not expect too much from life. We must give to life at least as much as we receive from it. Every moment one lives is different from the next. The good, the bad, the hardship, the joy, the tragedy, love and happiness are all interwoven into one single indescribable whole that is called LIFE. You cannot separate the good from the bad. And, perhaps there is no need to do so either."

That's all I want - is to give back. All I've been given, blessed with, graced with, and loved, I want to give back. Not give back as in to return it as one does a dress that no longer fits, but in a way that is repayment and thanksgiving for all of God's blessings given both through Him, through my Guardian Angel, and through the beautiful people I have encountered on life who have lived with their God-given gifts and used them to the fullest, inspiring me and stirring some kind of life inside me that I never knew existed or could ever have expected. We cannot live without each other - we are such great gifts and can offer so much to one another if we give a small fraction of what we've been blessed with and bestowed.

This I have learned very recently from MFM. I watch her and yearn to give as she gives. I am inspired to shed my envy and jealousy and give as she gives. She is the kindest, most caring, and generous person I have ever met. I wish I could stop envying all she does for others - so I have learned to embrace it and learn from it. Embrace. It seems to be the word that defines my life right now. Embrace it. Embrace change, embrace life, embrace love, embrace anxiety, embrace experience, embrace newness. Nothing feels so wonderful and so liberating as following her example. I see so many of them every time I speak with her, see her, or think about her. There is a great sense of safety and love, as if shielded by some kind of soft, downy wing, when I see her, speak with her, or think about her. She is so beautiful as a person, and I have met very few people who can contradict everything I have just said about her. Most of us love when she manages, or simply talking to her, but I often wonder if all of us have a strong current of underlying appreciation and adoration for her. If only each of us could follow her example, imitate just one thing that she does that teaches God's love, how beautiful and different my workplace would be. How are lives would be. How the town would be. How the world would be.

I want to give back. People have given me only the very best. And what I desperately want to do is give back my very best. The very best I have to offer is writing. It is my greatest gift, and all I have to give that completely - or at least perhaps adequately - expresses my return of favor. You give me something beautiful, I will return it - or at least try to - a thousand times over. Only writers have a great sense of what needs left unsaid to be more powerful than the hundred thousand - or perhaps just three - words it would take to describe an expression of self. I want to give back.

Writing, writer, write - it sums up my whole self. I can't think of the separation of the two. It defines who I am, and how I have been created and moulded. It gave me hope when I was surrounded by none, it gave me a reason to fight. Whenever I need guidance amidst chaos, I search within myself, asking God for an answer. How do I cope? How do I get through this? How do I work this out? How do I return the favor? How do I present thanksgiving? What is my greatest gift? What can I use to be of best service to the world? How do I place my stamp on the world? How do I pass on what I yearn to pass on? Where is my heart? For where my treasure is, there my heart will be also, in Your own words. Where do I go? How do I do this or that or the other? How do I accomplish whatever it is I need to accomplish?

And no vision appears, nor any particular deep voice that is used in the movies as "God's" voice. But a voice says, "Write." It is firm. Clear and distinct, but flatly and as in a matter of fact. It is not shy, nor loud. It is the voice that carries my inner monologue that we all hear daily, the voice we think we have. Where does the voice come? Where? Me? God? Whose voice is it? What is it? I don't know, but that is the answer to everything. It is the answer to all of my questions.

I have always had a sense of purpose - a kind of high hope - perhaps a bit overestimated, but it's too early to say. I have always had the notion that I would have a short life, but also that something greater is going to come of me. There's something waiting, but something that must be worked for, something I must do. It isn't waiting per se, but is going to be gained through hard work. And I never stop. I never plan to, either.