Felicity: intense happiness
I just picked this book up getting my phone fixed today, and finished it sitting in a haphazard chair in the middle of dunbar’s london drugs store. I think several things have recently allowed me to take a birds-eye view. When you take a step back, forcibly only out of irreversible situations, you recognize there will be things you want in your life, that you will miss, that perhaps you don’t cherish because you think you have forever. I take things in my life for granted — coffee shops across the street, the capacity to be at crossroads and to choose, the ability to text/call people, wisdom + advice given to me, people who I hold dear to me, the trees and the sky, living in Vancouver, precious opportunities to learn right now, moving through my routines and not struggling to function with something like chronic pain.
Mary Oliver’s writing is simple. The simplicity can seem like a child’s wonder and amazement, and she brings so much calmness and groundedness to the overwrought thoughts that consume us, with a renewed optimism gazing at the trees, the mountains, the rivers, and the ocean so vast and perfect as if it’s made for the dolphins. Maybe her writing is too matter-of-fact, and too accessible to everyone, and too childlike, but in a sense, her writing’s also the points of pause during square breathing, no inhalation/exhalation, but stillness, and in those moments, less is more.
Everyone now and again wonders about
those questions that have no ready
answers: first cause, God’s existence,
what happens when the curtain goes
down and nothing stops it, not kissing,
not going to the mall, not the Super
Bowl.
from “Roses”
Existance, mortality, and the inevitability of time. everything passes, doesn’t it? what happens, when the curtain goes down? when we approach death. who is there to tell us — and what can we do to stop it? the responses we attempt to generate are futile, and no worldly distraction can halt the passage of time. no matter how much we try to immerse ourselves in love (kissing), in consumerism (going to the mall), or entertainment (the Super Bowl), the inevitable is still there. everything is fleeting. we are perfectly temporary.
To understand many things you must reach out
of your own condition.
…
The point is, you’re you, and that’s for keeps.
from “Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way”
To understand the so many unknowns of the universe, to eclipse with other souls, and to fathom ‘what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life’ , it requires stepping beyond limitations that we are attuned to by default. it requires examining things with fresh, curious eyes. and i think that as the world is stagnating and evolving and spinning and oscillating, on the verge of collapsing and then renewing, it’s indeed is mostly attitude, and if you want to see something, you can perhaps find a way to see that something, peering in all directions.
Think of Sheba approaching
the kingdom of Solomon.
Do you think she had to ask,
“Is this the place?”
from “I Wake Close to Morning”
A lot of Mary Oliver’s writing is fuelled by feelings. i think there is truth in living passionately. i think falling in love a little bit with the world, paving the way as you go, knowing that there is no wrong choice to take, and recognizing that ‘there are moments that cry out to be fulfilled./ Like, telling someone you love them./ Or giving your money away, all of it.’ because too much thinking and analysis and caution restrains you from taking risks, and cushions you from the purpose of life, which is to experience, perhaps even in making mistakes. this hesitation and calculation insulates us from the very real possibility of the warmth of love.
