Day 239 Steering From Inside

August 5, 2015

(If we live with an open and grateful attitude, every day will bring a gift. This is one of 365 gifts during the year I turned 70.)

Baltimore poet Shirley Brewer

Time has a habit of disappearing before I can even acknowledge it. The minutes, hours, days are swallowed up by the rabbit hole before I can grab them. Maybe this is akin to running down a hill where gravity pulls you downward, faster than your legs can move. Such a feeling of exuberance and fear. I remember that feeling as a child and it only stopped when I fell over and forced my legs to stop.

Today, there was no running down a hill but a slowing down when friend Shirley visited. After many weeks, we caught up and walked in Downs Park until the deer flies attacked her. We concluded they liked her vanilla scent because they didn’t attack me and I wasn’t wearing vanilla. I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned that experience into a new poem.

Shirley, my favorite poet, read some of her new poetry to me and it was a treat. Imagine a wall lined with peepholes and when you look through each one, you see a vignette, a separate slice of life that pulls you in. This is the flavor of her poems. I asked her if there were any phrases or lines she had written that cling to her more than others do. She said, “steering from inside.” 

This is a good metaphor for we must all steer our lives from the inside if we want to control our run down the hill. Steering from inside leads to poetry, friendship and a rich life.

My gift today is a special poet.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~­ 

> Day 240: Black and White

You can find links to my other posts on this project here:

http://bjschupp.blogspot.com/2014/12/365-gifts.html