I haven’t written anything here in days. In Days. And it’s not because I’m out of town anymore, and away from my computer. That can no longer be my excuse.
It’s not for a lack of ideas. I have, in fact, a list of things to write about in my blog. Some of them will have photos to post along with the text. Some are funny. Some are thoughtful. But I haven’t posted any of them. Nope.
Why? you may ask. You may ask.
It isn’t for lack of trying. I have sat down More Than Once in this exact chair, in front of this exact computer, and opened this exact page (well, maybe not exact– who knows how these things work?) on my computer screen, and I have Tried To Write. But I get nothing.
And I wonder: is it because of my blog entry on Sunday? because I doubted the power of articulation? Did I, by articulating my inability to articulate, become inarticulate? Have I offended the gods? Inadvertently smacked my muse in the face?
From what I understand, muses are not terribly understanding. Not terribly forgiving. No.
That would be Sad for me. I love to Write.
I don’t believe that is it. Instead, I think that I, once again, have a case of Coming Home.
It’s worse this time than last. If you’ve read here before, then perhaps you’ll recall a little thing I wrote called Transition, about how hard it is to come home after being away. And the truth is that I scarcely got home after being away last time before I went away again, so, in a way, it’s as though I haven’t really been home since the end of June.
The thing about coming home is that Everything Waits For You. And that’s good. Because there’s your bed (and there is No Place in the world like One’s Own Bed), and your room, your cat, maybe, and house and yard and friends. Everything Dear and Familiar.
But some of what waits for you might not be so good. Some of it might be Difficult Situations, or Difficult People. Housework. And your yard.
We live in North Carolina. And that means that we have a fabulous growing season. It begins at the end of February and lasts until sometime in October. This means Heat, and Moisture, and Everything Green, and vines and tendrils and branches and leaves all growing and vining and running amok if you don’t absolutely keep it all in Check.
What is amazing is that, when you are away, the things that you Don’t want to grow like mad (take, for example, the pumpkin seed that was, apparently, blown off your upstairs deck last November) have now vined their way completely Out of All Reason, have Overcome your very large azalea bush, have taken over your side yard, have laced themselves through the lattice door of the storage space under the deck, and are now forcing said door open, cheerfully exposing bright yellow blosoms Everywhere, so that you haven’t the heart to cut it down.
On the other hand, the hanging baskets that you so carefully filled with the sweetest red viney things back in May are now dead as door posts, dry, dry, dry, looking all brown and hideous, looking, it must be said, like Death Personified.
When you are away for weeks at a time, you can’t keep things like these in Check. No, you can’t.
And when you come home, you just might begin to feel Overwhelmed.
Being overwhelmed can get Discouraging, which can stymie Joy. And Writing.
So this morning I lay in bed (oh wonderful bed) and thought about getting up. But there was something pulling me down, something that has been nagging at me for days, something that felt like Too Much, and that was More than simple yard work, something that made Effort feel a bit pointless. That, my friends, is the precipice of depression.
And so wisely, by some Grace, I turned to poetry. Here it is:
God’s Grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs–
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
