Listen to Your Life
Plant Dreaming Deep by May Sarton
A second reading
I am sharing this essay again because its quiet observations still linger.
I am one of those people who underline, mark, and fold pages in a book. I am not choosy—give me a hardcover or paperback; if something resonates, I will drag a pen, pencil, or marker along the words as if to absorb them into the fiber of my being.
I once asked an author to sign a book he had written; when he turned to the front page, he looked aghast. I had written all over it. I was as surprised by his reaction as he was to see the “mess” I had scribbled around his words. It was as if I had poured coffee all over the original manuscript, and he was left to write another. I told him, “I can't help myself—I feel compelled to take notes when I enjoy an author’s writing.”
I felt I was paying him a great compliment. I am not sure it was received that way. Once over the shock, he was gracious about it and signed the book with a flourishing note.
Around that time, I began saving passages and poems in a journal. I have since filled three. I call it my Little Book of Hope.
We had recently moved to a new country, and I was desperately homesick for the one before. It was during those days when our children often asked, “Where is home?” I would reply, “Wherever we are.”
One day, I drove through our new village, I came across a sign tucked into a patch of wildflowers at the edge of the road. The small white sign read Field of Hope.
It has been nearly 12 years since I spotted it, and to this day, I begin each new journal by writing on the cover, Little Book of Hope. I think of it as a form of mindful therapy. These journals follow me everwhere.
Many of you are soulmates when it comes to projects like this. We are a merry little band of creative souls. We write, read, photograph, sketch, paint, and ponder life— expressing it in our own ways. We appreciate one another’s pursuits because we get it. Nothing feels too crazy. We simply embrace life as best we can.
If this idea is new to you, I hope you will create your own Little Book of Hope — call it whatever you like. Grab a journal or pad of paper and start searching. You will know where to go.
My guess is the words are already waiting for you— in a book, a card, a letter, or a stack of notes tucked away for a rainy day. Mix it up. Use your words and the ones you want to remember. Take a long walk, meditate, or crank up the music. Do your thing. It is your story, your little book of hope, your secret—and it's fun!
In the early days at Tahilla Farm, on a summer morning, I breathed in every word of this passage from May Sarton’s book, Plant Dreaming Deep…
Finally at the end of that long, rainy, glorious day, I turned out the lights and fell into bed. At first there was too great a buzz of things still to be done in my head, but at last I could listen, first to the silence, and then, through it, to the infinite number of sounds an old house contains in the night. There were small creaks, a door opening in the draught, then the scurry of a field mouse somewhere in the kitchen, and something less tangible, as if things themselves breathed very softly, as if the old furniture were settling down. All these sounds together made the house feel like a ship. I did not know where the ship would take me, but I knew it was snug and beautiful, and I know that its passenger was both inwards and outwards bound. May Sarton
And another passage from Frederick Buechner I tucked into my journal….
If I were called upon to state in a few words the essence of everything I was trying to say it would be something like this:
Listen to your life. See if for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is a grace. Frederick Buechner
I return to these words often. They remind me that attention itself is a kind of home.
Grace in the hills of New Hampshire…
