Inspiration

I am surprised by what inspires me during the darker seasons in life.  During those times of heightened anxiety, grief, overwhelm, when it hard to get your bearings, joy can seem so distant.  The air and light so far away, when I am so deep under the waters of loss and despair.  So when I feel inspired to be alive and in love again with life, however brief, I am startled and so very grateful.  

With this inspiring, I am unexpectedly and suddenly filled with the long deep breath that I am yearn for and with it the belonging to life that the grief disrupted.  In a dark time, the inspiration often comes from the most subtle of things, sometimes so easy and quiet that I would have missed it if I were happier.  Like yesterday at the lake where I go to swim each evening in the summer and ran into the friend who pays attention to things I hardly ever notice and lives into them so fully. She knows where to find the sweetest fruits of the season, and which farmstand has the absolute best tomatoes or peaches.  She lives and helps to care for her aging mother.  Together they stock the freezer full of the season's bounty and watch PBS mysteries late into the evening.  As an usher, the listens to live music several evenings each week in this valley as rich in summer fruit as culture. My heart feels lighter when she tells me about her days and all the many things she is looking forward to doing in our valley as the summer light slowly diminishes into the coming dark.  

My own pain is made lighter, like the wispy clouds after the dark thunder passes.  I feel inspired, hopeful, and grateful to have the chance to know someone intimately enough to see how their joy comes not from having the perfect life but grows out towards the light from darkness.  I am less alone.