Busy Heart

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the

chamber of commerce

but take it also to the forest.

The song you heard singing in the leaf when you

were a child

is singing still.

-From “What Can I Say” by Mary Oliver

 

This evening, at what should have been supper time, I felt called down to the river.

I stifled the urge for a few minutes, knowing there was laundry to be folded, lunch dishes piled beside the sink, books scattered across the dining room table from the day’s lessons.

But the murmur of the river is persistent. It drowns out the beep of the answering machine and the swoosh of the washing machine and the buzz of the neighbor’s weed whacker.

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Kicking My Worst Habit

No, I’m not talking about leaving the lights on every time I come up from the basement, or chronically abandoning my empty travel mugs in the car. I’m not talking about taking off my jewelry at night and leaving it on the bathroom counter, or neglecting the mail for days.

I’m not even talking about answering my phone when it rings (Sorry, Mom).

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