Allow

This morning I was reading a piece about aging and something in it was so poignant, I found myself crying. It’s difficult for me sometimes to face into the truth of aging. But I decided to do something called “lectio divina”with the piece I had read. Without rereading it, I just tried to remember what one word was most important to me – what stuck with me in this piece. The word was “let”.. Many of the sentences in this piece started with the command. to “let”. I sat with that word. Turned it over and over in my mind;

to let … to allow, welcome, embrace, tolerate, accommodate, accept, encourage, go, flow, open, give, get out of the way, say YES, unstitch…

--- all things I would like to do/be.

and the opposite of to let… prevent, restrict, stop, hold back, close, resist, withhold, interfere, repair, interrupt, oppose, blame, say NO…

--- all things I would like not to do/be.

At the beginning of every year, I try to choose a “word of the year:” that I want to measure up to. This year I chose “soft” – and I have been softening into that goal! Now I’ve decided my word for the second half of 2021 will be “allow”.

Here’s a poem about that from my friend Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer;

LETTING IT BE

There is a carpenter in me

with an impressive tool belt.

She thinks she can fix everything.

Every time there’s a leak in the ducts,

she blames that darn condensation,

and whips out her metallic tape.

And when there’s a heart break,

she mumbles something about not meeting code,

then takes note of all the cracks,

all the places where it’s falling apart,

and gets to work: cleans up and preps

new concrete to hold things together.

I know she’s doing what she knows best,

I know she has good intentions.

But today, while she runs off to seek

just the right hammer, just the right nails,

I take those leaky ducts and that broken heart

into the garden and dig potatoes.

The soil is cool and slips soft

though my fingers as I sift for yellow fingerlings

and red-skinned Desirees.

There is a gardener in me who doesn’t try

to fix anything. She says in a quiet southern drawl,

Sweet thing, bring all that brokenness here

and let it walk amongst the sunflowers.

Let it weed the carrots and pick

some calendula bouquets. And nothing

gets fixed, but something shifts as I sit

beside unruly mint, its green spears rampant,

its scent so cooling, so sweet.