I promise to stop rowing and listen now

"You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me. Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile away and still out of sight, the churn of the water as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the sharp rocks–when you hear that unmistakable pounding–when you feel the mist on your mouth and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls plunging and steaming–then row, row for your life toward it.
"

Today I stopped rowing and listened for the first time in a long time. Deadlines are looming, impossibilities mounting, and I can't stop doing the dishes. Or the laundry. Or baking something that invariably won't taste as good as it would if I simply put the right amount of butter in it. Scheming. Formulating. Scheduling. What's the plan? Do you have one? I do. But I don't.

Driven by the idea that life must have a purpose, I've read into every double meaning, filled every moment with idle movement, and lost what keeps the edges of my soul from slowly chipping away.

I crave frivolity, whimsy. Give me beauty without aim, creation without efficiency. I don't simply want to progress. I want to sometimes trip, and sometimes fall, and sometimes feel the earth mix with the blood in the crevices of my scraped knees. 

And then I'll get back up again, and I'll continue, and I'll be forever changed.


Because
"our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving"

Today I stopped rowing and listened for the swirling waters. I read poetry aloud. Day dreamed of sea views and sought them out fervently. Visited places once visited and talked about dreams yet to be fulfilled. And made a promise to the man I love.

I promise to stop rowing and listen now.

Quotations from works by Mary Oliver (West Wind #2 and Bones)