Square One

What to do when things fall apart?  Big things.  Put-my-whole-heart-in-it-and-it-went-kaplooey things.

Nobody knows.  Not really.

First, there's the flattening.  After a time, propping up on one knee.  Then, a sucker punch, for good measure.  Finally, on two feet.  Staggering about.  Disorientation.  And so forth.

But, here's the odd thing.  What seems to happen next is that I find myself willingly doing something as a complete beginner.  It may be quite tiny.  It may be in private.  And, it may not amount to a hill of beans in terms of a tangible achievement.  BUT -- it reconnects me to life.  Right where I am.  At square one.

Which is how I've come to dabble in watercolors.  I know nothing.  So, I come empty-handed and just experiment.  And sometimes the radio is on.  And there's a lovely glass of iced-tea.  And it may get very late before I realize I've spent a Saturday night absorbed in the process.  And that is the magic.  That is the healing.  That is the reassurance that life goes on. . .  with me, somehow, still in it.

After all, that's what my heart is being asked to do.  To just go on beating.  To start out empty.  To experience life the way it is now.  Makes sense that it would feel right to do it on the outside, too.

That is what I have today.  And, oddly, it's everything I need.