Andrea, when I read your words today, I thought of my favorite excerpt from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet:
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer."
You are a breathing testimony to what it means to live the questions. Thank you for being a witness of how to show up authentically every day. ❤️
Thank you for sharing how you move through hard things. Your writing brings me comfort in times when few things can, and I’m so grateful you exist. Congratulations on the success of your new treatment!
My heart is with you, as it always is when I read or hear your words. The first thing I thought of when reading this was ... may the world read out loud for her. I imagined hundreds of authors reading your work in symphony. Although not as powerful or beautiful as you reading, I can imagine beauty in this too. Sending acceptance. ❤️🙏
I could go on and on and on about the impact this most Magnificent Masterpiece that you've written...to whoever is willing to take the time to read it......has had on ME.
I’m so, so glad that you’re responding well to the chemo. And I’m amazed, as always, by the way you wrestle wisdom and joy out of hardship. Thank you for your words, whether spoken ( as I hope they will be soon) or written.
Andrea!!! First of all - HALLELUJAH! I'm singing it for you! Responding positively to the chemo!! Crying happy tears for you, that's amazing news!!
Second - The way you become curious and dive deep into what's underlying everything is as masterful as your poetry. I am forever in awe of you and forever changed in the best ways because of what you share with us.
Thank you a million times in a million ways. So much love to you!
As someone who temporarily lost their voice completely for a couple months a year or two back (for completely different reasons), I remember just hoping that I would be able to read aloud again, it felt like the most important thing in the world to be able to read out loud, because writing feels different when spoken. I have not gone through what you’ve gone through, but I think I can truly empathize with that, and also with what being temporarily mute taught me about communicating through the loneliness
when i woke up from having half a lung removed last year, i could barely talk. they told me they'd had to put in a big breathing tube so they could collapse one lung during surgery, and that might have caused swelling that was messing with my voice. two weeks later i still could barely talk. long story short: they threaded a camera through my nose, down my throat, and into my voice box, and declared my vocal cord "paralyzed." turns out the nerve that controls the cord happens to run right alongside one of the lymph nodes that had to come out. so i will never again hear the voice that used to be mine. and plenty of words get lost in the sentences i try to speak. it's the side roads and cul-de-sacs of cancer that serve to strip us away deeper and deeper. but, blessed you, you always mine for and find the gold nugget deep in the igneous rock. my silencing is not the same as yours, and i don't mean to equate anything. i only mean to say thank you for putting words to some of what it feels like to be silenced. sometimes i feel like i'm underwater trying, trying to be heard. and it had been so hard to find my voice in the first place. maybe that's why i found my way to writing...
Barbara — writing is happy you found your way to it. Side roads and cul de sacs of cancer. Wishing you strength but it is so clear you have it already.
Thank you. I cannot count on all my fingers and toes the number of times your words and soul sharing have soothed and saved me. Today is no exception. Dealing with a shocking injury to my foot just yesterday, I’m unable to walk and the losses associated feel devastating, never mind the pain of the injury itself. Thank you for this hope, this curiosity, this light.
I know we’ve never met (I was too nervous to say hello in 2018, the only time I got to go to one of your in-person gigs!) but your existence “in” my life has been a glimmer and a flame since I first discovered Gospel Salt. Thank you, with the whole of my being. Wishing you healing, joy, and continued presence in your experiences in all the ways you need. ✨
Instead of resolutions every new year, I choose one word. For many years, the word has been silence. Thank you for reminding me that I can choose the action (or lack of action) unless I need my body to choose it for me. The quote you included, "I wonder if I will ever have an answer to this question that feels %100 true:
Does punishment ever heal or does it simply comfort what is unhealed in the punisher?" almost broke me. Of course this is true. And my children have suffered for it. Silence...
My goodness - as always, your words take me to a different place. And thank you for sharing McDaniel's poem. It shook me.
I found myself wondering - have you read Sun House by David James Duncan? There's a character that your post made me think of about 50 times as I read - Jervis is his name. I suspect you will fall deeply in love with him (as well as with the other many, many characters in this wonderful book).
"After doing that, I soon found myself nestled in the arms of my most consistent and reliable savior—Curiosity. What do I have to learn from not being able to speak? How might this be an opportunity to further open my heart?"
So, so good--these lines feel reminiscent of our luminary, Mary Oliver. Some of her poems come to mind, which I hope are of solace: "The Storm, Franz Marc's Blue Horses, & Almost a Conversation". Prayers for you, Meg, and your voice.
Your journey in all its glory is giving me such great insight into my kiddo and their journey. There is so much of the heart that you share that is a universal. I have found comfort and an ability to provide grace because it helps me see some of my child’s (or my own for that matter) experience that they otherwise don’t yet have the ability to articulate. I hope they can find the ways to tap into that beauty in themselves and I’m so grateful for you sharing it with the rest of us ❤️
Andrea, when I read your words today, I thought of my favorite excerpt from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet:
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer."
You are a breathing testimony to what it means to live the questions. Thank you for being a witness of how to show up authentically every day. ❤️
Yip yip (inuwit) for amazing you are.
Thank you for sharing how you move through hard things. Your writing brings me comfort in times when few things can, and I’m so grateful you exist. Congratulations on the success of your new treatment!
My heart is with you, as it always is when I read or hear your words. The first thing I thought of when reading this was ... may the world read out loud for her. I imagined hundreds of authors reading your work in symphony. Although not as powerful or beautiful as you reading, I can imagine beauty in this too. Sending acceptance. ❤️🙏
Beautiful — that symphony — what a magnificent thought
Andrea,
I could go on and on and on about the impact this most Magnificent Masterpiece that you've written...to whoever is willing to take the time to read it......has had on ME.
This is what Feels True to Me:
You, Andrea, Are A Warrior Woman.....
With Loving Kindness,
Ann
Andrea, your voice comes from way more than your vocal chords and touches us even in the deepest silence. Sending so much love
❤️
Truth.
<3 Eckhart Tolle: “Acceptance of the unacceptable is the greatest source of grace in this world.” I know this grace intimately now....oof. and yes.
Dear Andrea,
I’m so, so glad that you’re responding well to the chemo. And I’m amazed, as always, by the way you wrestle wisdom and joy out of hardship. Thank you for your words, whether spoken ( as I hope they will be soon) or written.
"Wrestle wisdom" .....love that.
Andrea!!! First of all - HALLELUJAH! I'm singing it for you! Responding positively to the chemo!! Crying happy tears for you, that's amazing news!!
Second - The way you become curious and dive deep into what's underlying everything is as masterful as your poetry. I am forever in awe of you and forever changed in the best ways because of what you share with us.
Thank you a million times in a million ways. So much love to you!
As someone who temporarily lost their voice completely for a couple months a year or two back (for completely different reasons), I remember just hoping that I would be able to read aloud again, it felt like the most important thing in the world to be able to read out loud, because writing feels different when spoken. I have not gone through what you’ve gone through, but I think I can truly empathize with that, and also with what being temporarily mute taught me about communicating through the loneliness
❤️
when i woke up from having half a lung removed last year, i could barely talk. they told me they'd had to put in a big breathing tube so they could collapse one lung during surgery, and that might have caused swelling that was messing with my voice. two weeks later i still could barely talk. long story short: they threaded a camera through my nose, down my throat, and into my voice box, and declared my vocal cord "paralyzed." turns out the nerve that controls the cord happens to run right alongside one of the lymph nodes that had to come out. so i will never again hear the voice that used to be mine. and plenty of words get lost in the sentences i try to speak. it's the side roads and cul-de-sacs of cancer that serve to strip us away deeper and deeper. but, blessed you, you always mine for and find the gold nugget deep in the igneous rock. my silencing is not the same as yours, and i don't mean to equate anything. i only mean to say thank you for putting words to some of what it feels like to be silenced. sometimes i feel like i'm underwater trying, trying to be heard. and it had been so hard to find my voice in the first place. maybe that's why i found my way to writing...
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Barbara — writing is happy you found your way to it. Side roads and cul de sacs of cancer. Wishing you strength but it is so clear you have it already.
Thank you Andrea. Beautiful post. Reminds me of a quote from Gandhi:
“Speak only when it improves upon the silence.”
Beautiful
Thank you. I cannot count on all my fingers and toes the number of times your words and soul sharing have soothed and saved me. Today is no exception. Dealing with a shocking injury to my foot just yesterday, I’m unable to walk and the losses associated feel devastating, never mind the pain of the injury itself. Thank you for this hope, this curiosity, this light.
I know we’ve never met (I was too nervous to say hello in 2018, the only time I got to go to one of your in-person gigs!) but your existence “in” my life has been a glimmer and a flame since I first discovered Gospel Salt. Thank you, with the whole of my being. Wishing you healing, joy, and continued presence in your experiences in all the ways you need. ✨
❤️
Instead of resolutions every new year, I choose one word. For many years, the word has been silence. Thank you for reminding me that I can choose the action (or lack of action) unless I need my body to choose it for me. The quote you included, "I wonder if I will ever have an answer to this question that feels %100 true:
Does punishment ever heal or does it simply comfort what is unhealed in the punisher?" almost broke me. Of course this is true. And my children have suffered for it. Silence...
My goodness - as always, your words take me to a different place. And thank you for sharing McDaniel's poem. It shook me.
I found myself wondering - have you read Sun House by David James Duncan? There's a character that your post made me think of about 50 times as I read - Jervis is his name. I suspect you will fall deeply in love with him (as well as with the other many, many characters in this wonderful book).
Deep bow.
I’ll check it out. Thank you!
"After doing that, I soon found myself nestled in the arms of my most consistent and reliable savior—Curiosity. What do I have to learn from not being able to speak? How might this be an opportunity to further open my heart?"
So, so good--these lines feel reminiscent of our luminary, Mary Oliver. Some of her poems come to mind, which I hope are of solace: "The Storm, Franz Marc's Blue Horses, & Almost a Conversation". Prayers for you, Meg, and your voice.
Your journey in all its glory is giving me such great insight into my kiddo and their journey. There is so much of the heart that you share that is a universal. I have found comfort and an ability to provide grace because it helps me see some of my child’s (or my own for that matter) experience that they otherwise don’t yet have the ability to articulate. I hope they can find the ways to tap into that beauty in themselves and I’m so grateful for you sharing it with the rest of us ❤️
❤️