I’ve wrestled so much to understand what really, really matters in this life of all the noisy things we’re told... and can’t understand what it is anymore if it isn’t that my heart aches from its bottom for nothing but to build a home, and to love quietly and honestly and deeply with feet planted gentle and firm, when the weather’s fair and just the same when it’s awful, and to give our all, in burning away our awful pride and selfishness, and to open always our door to strangers and the oldest of friends for warm dinner on cold nights, when the nights are cold, when the world is cold, and choose to live with feet here to stay, hobbit feet, patient and trusting and unhurried in our growth and our love with nowhere to be but here, and to live with those bare free feet in dirt and mud and sticks and laughter and grass, and to learn our whole lives to live in rest and quiet and slowness and forgiveness and goodness and gentleness and courage and let everything that follows flow from there, warmth of heart and coming home again amid such desperate cold. god, does my heart hurt for that.
and let us try, before we die,
to make some sense of life.
we’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good
we’ll do the best we know
we’ll build our house and chop our wood
and make our garden grow...
and make our garden grow.
/bernstein’s candide