here again
I have all sorts of patterns, for the good or the bad. Socially, physically, emotionally, my life undulates like rhythmic waves of patterns. Yet always seeming to catch me where I left it, walking this spiraling, circling path.
“I find myself here again,” I say, again. “Eating too much, not returning phone calls, writing instead of running, passivity instead of strength…” Again!
And now behold, the mirror of life: this verdant earth beneath my feet. It cycles and cycles.
Rhythm upon rhythm.
We live in Virginia where there is perpetually (yearly) death and new life. You would think that nature would have learned by now! What a waste! She kills everything, just to grow everything again. But for what purpose? To what end?
But she keeps on, keepin’ on. Each one of nature’s small hands drop from the trees, floating to the tune of their brief funeral song, to die on the ground, every single year. And as Annie Dillard says, nature- that profligate being- where all is spent, but nothing is lost.
“Is it worth it?” I ask, again. Because I want to know, for my own sake primarily.
Are the cycles of learning, relearning; on, off; rhythm, out of tune- is it worth it? Because in the end, we are not above the cycle. We are as much of the cycle of death and rebirth (daily! monthly! yearly!) as the leaves of the trees. How arrogant of us to think we are above them!
And is it worth it?
Ask the hydrangeas.
