Easy to Please

Some days just feel really good. There’s nothing special in particular that happens - just little things going right, one after another; and none of the usual upsets matter at all.

This morning I spent some time copying a poem in long-hand to mail to one of my brothers. I kept making small errors, and so kept starting over. I’ve almost memorized the poem now. It was written by the late Leopold Staff, a Polish writer. I don’t know the title; I read it in a book a year or so ago (I think it was The Art of Peace).

I didn’t believe,
Standing on the bank of a river
Which was wide and swift,
That I would cross that bridge
Plaited from thin, fragile reeds
Fastened with bast.
I walked delicately as a butterfly
And heavily as an elephant;
I walked surely as a dancer
And wavered as a blind man.
I didn’t believe that I would cross that bridge,
And now that I am standing on the other side
I don’t believe I crossed it.

I like poems like this. When the voice sounds as surprised as I do by the ending. A good poem can really set the day up right.

I went to studio class today and we did some directing. I thought I hated directing, but turns out this was wrong. The instructor suggested that I direct the final project. First, the idea surprised me, and then I wanted to be nervous about it. Then it occurred to me: “But I don’t feel nervous about it at all. It’ll be fun!” My new motto for a while is: “Screw it up and learn!” I feel that much closer to my dream of being a producer. I don’t remember who it was that said it, but they were right: You learn to create by creating.

Yesterday, Oprah had a show on about families. She featured 14 families from Charlotte, North Carolina, that had adopted over 30 Liberian orphans. It started with one Christian woman attending an African boys’ choir fundraiser; she said God spoke to her and told her that two of those boys were hers. She adopted them, and even though her friends thought she was crazy, they eventually adopted kids, too. So now all of these black, Christian Liberian orphans are living with these white, middle class, Christian American families, and it all seems fairly strange and powerful. Following this, Oprah introduced a gay couple and five of their six children. The two men had taken in 21 foster kids over the years, and adopted the ones who eventually had nowhere else to go. I wondered if the Christian adoptive parents would have taken issue with the gay adoptive couple, and I appreciated that Oprah never posed that question. She just celebrated the generosity they were all practicing, and she said - without saying - all of these are people putting love into the world; all of these people are families.

When my brain settles on thoughts like these, I don’t need the day to end; I’m not tired.