on my side

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver


There is a government housing block across from my expensive building. I often hear foreign languages spoken there.
This means Australian citizens shelter/house and feed foreigners as their own. These folks live in the swanky suburb, they have one of the few parks around. They beg money off the rest of us as we make our way to work in the mornings.
It's nice.

“The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.”
― Mary Oliver


This is the Mary Oliver poem I was looking for. Found.
Just like the first time I read "Eat,Pray,Love", this poem years ago struck a chord, but now has become so much more familiar...makes so much deeper sense....is like my very own poem.
Especially this time the "strode deeper and deeper into the world" bit.
The voice that is my own. So much of what I hear myself saying comes from somewhere else, someone else. Often my actions and reactions are tempered and adjusted to fit what I have agreed at some point in the past are correct influences.
My mom, dad, teachers, mentors, friends, authors. Whether or not it is applicable to the moment, whether or not it properly informs the present circumstance is often not questioned.
What is the final outcome of my life? Of my path?
The thing that feels right, that feels like my honest answer.....that existence is not like that. There is no final. Or else, we cannot ever tell when it is final. It might be too much of us trying to fit the enormity of a life into something like a story. And that is like fitting the oceans into an ice tray. To be later used to cool our lemonade.
At first, the finding of my voice is saying "Not that" and "Not this either"
Zenith said discrimination will come. Perception.
And also I am realizing that truly all the things must be held at once. As my sphere increases, I do not really put down things from before, but reach out wider to embrace even more.
All of the joyousness, all of the pain, all of the uncomfortable memories, embarrassments, failures, achievements.....they all exist at once within me. All of the ideas and people who disagree, the experiences that oppose others, they are at once my reality always. It all sits with me like my own sea.
A weaker one perhaps shuts down parts as they go. But I am a ram. My horns and head were made for persistence. A sturdy fence will take only so much abuse before it gives way to larger pastures.
I shall succeed. I cannot fail at persisting if I persist.
The world belongs to me too.

Early this morning my teacher pushed me into a forward bend until I was nauseous.
Then further still.
I told her after and she said "yes, that's the excess coming out" I chuckled, responding that I have a lot of that to work on.
And she smiled. And calmly she said "It's ok. You have time."