Days I Delighted in Everything
by Jessica Greenbaum
I was listening to a book on tape while driving
and when the author said, “Those days I delighted in everything,”
I pulled over and found a pencil and a parking ticket stub
because surely there was a passage of life where I thought
“These days I delight in everything,” right there in the
present, because they almost all feel like that now,
memory having markered only the outline while evaporating
the inner anxieties of earlier times. Did I not disparage
my body for years on end, for instance, although, in contrast
that younger one now strikes me as near-Olympian?
And the crushing preoccupations of that same younger self
might seem magically diluted, as though a dictator
in hindsight, had only been an overboard character —
but not so.Here's the rest.
I know there have been days in my life when I have delighted in everything, but I have wasted so much time in fear and worry. And there's so much to delight in.
Hope you're delighting in today.
Here's today's roundup.
6 comments:
Oh, but it never happened again.
The love of my reading life has been audio books. But, there are some drawbacks. One being I cannot mark up the page or sticky-note it. Another, is that I cannot skim and the intensity of emotion or of the scene is sometimes to fierce for me. Gosh, that poem is a good one. That moment....lost but the idea of it so perfect and almost attainable.
I'm not sure how to receive this poem, Ruth. Is she startled into remorse by the phrase, or satisfied to be in the present? What an interesting poem.
This poem really resonates. It pulls you in and makes you ponder the state of everything.
I had to read this poem several times, Ruth, and uncovered some new meaning in its wisdom each time.
Ah, yes. File this one under, "If only I had known then what I know now" and then move on and start a new file: "Delight in Everything Because it Will All Be Gone."
In the moment, capturing the moment, thanks for sharing Jessica Greenbaum's winding poem–many good thoughts here!
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