Butterfly Words

I want to write something happy today, something light and reassuring. For the trouble of stopping by my blog, I want my words to inspire you, to lift you up.

I want you to have the feeling that I so often get when I read my favorite blogs, the feeling that through it all, around it all, within and out the spiraling that is life, everything is okay. Always.

That life is made of warmth and light and that everything outside of that love is shades of illusions we add to make it all interesting.

I wish this blog more accurately reflected me. The real me, the reality of me. Here, in these posts, are mere snapshots of my impressions and my life. But so often the words skim across the surface only.

Choosing one emotion to write about leaves the others unsaid. For every emotion I've ever depicted here, there were always others, resting within me like butterflies pulsing on the leaves of the eucalyptus tree, slowly fanning their orange-black wings and awaiting their own turn to soar.

Life hurts - and it makes me smile. The pain of loss is never far from me. Yet I live most days filled with joy. I'm glad for every bit of my past at the same time that I am often anxious about my future.

Mostly, I just wish us all well, and hope we can find some joy today.

And here are some thoughts from our new Poet Laureate:

One of the Butterflies
by W. S. Merwin

The trouble with pleasure is the timing
it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems that I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn to pain.