thoughts. on this fragile world.

We really live in the most frail of worlds – don’t we?

Our own personal ecosystem is a mess.  

I’m not even talking about actual environmental problems.  I just mean – things fall apart. It’s hard to maintain anything – your yard, your living room, your friendships.  

Recently my friend had a plumbing issue and her (new) floorboards had to be torn out and there was literal water just flowing under her house because it’s basically all a charade.  A puppet show.  Held together with glue and cardboard, propped up with sticks and strings and what on earth are we doing here?

You know what I’m saying?

We had friends over for dinner.  

(We sat under the twinkling lights, even though it was a little chilly. I have twinkly lights on my deck.  They make me unreasonably happy every time I see them. (You already know this, dear reader.) Please come have tea with me one night out there.  The wind chimes. The lights. It’s enough to make you gloss right over the scratched up and dented porch furniture and the weeds growing under the deck.)

And we talked about how we all feel like a fraud sometimes.  How we think if people really knew us, they’d see right through us.  They’d know we were faking it – faking our ability to do this job well or to be a capable adult.  Like it’s a bit of a game of pretend.

Things don’t last.
We’re all afraid.
There’s nothing new under the sun.

I don’t have to make this up.  

And isn’t that reason enough to make certain you study the beauty of the world?  Not that you hold onto it and squeeze it til it dies, but that you see it, know it, feel it – be thankful for it  – breathe it in and let it sit near you.

You can’t capture it forever, you can’t force any of it to linger beyond its natural course, but you can love it while you have it, whatever that it is.

You can recognize the fleeting joy and the passing beauty, all made the more lovely for their brevity. For their known fragility. 

Like the irises blooming in my yard, the breeze flowing through my windows.  They can’t stay forever.

But give me all that sunshine while it lasts. I’ll gather the blooms for the day and praise them until they fade.

Because I know that cathedrals burn and monuments crumble. We grow old and our memories falter. 

Today I’ll hold my son’s hand and I’ll marvel at the pink and yellow moth he has discovered and I’ll try to remember what today tastes like and feels like and how, when the lights were twinkly and the sun was setting, it was enough to be alive.

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