He saw clearly how plain and simple – how narrow, even – it all was;
but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him,
and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence.
He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, 
to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him 
and creep home and stay there; 
the upper world was all too strong, 
it called to him still, even down there, 
and he knew he must return to the larger stage. 
But it was good to think he had this to come back to, 
this place which was all his own, 
these things which were so glad to see him again 
and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.
~Kenneth Grahame, from Wind in the Willows (about the Mole and his home at Mole End)

 

 

If your everyday life seems poor to you, do not accuse it; accuse yourself, tell yourself you are not poet enough to summon up its riches; since for the creator there is no poverty and no poor or unimportant place.
― Rainer Maria Rilke

 

 

As a child, I would sometimes spend long rainy afternoons languishing on the couch at home, complaining to my mother how boring my life was.  Her typical response was to remind me my boredom said more about me than about life – I became the accused, rather than the accuser,  failing to summon up life’s riches.  Thus convicted, my sentence followed:  she would promptly give me chores to do.   I learned not to voice my complaints about life because it always meant work.

Some things haven’t changed, even fifty five years later.  Whenever I am tempted to feel pitiful or bored, accusing my life of being poor or unfair, I need to remember what that says about me.  There is a whole world out there to explore, plenty of work needing doing and always a welcome home when I return.

If I’m not poet enough to celebrate the gilded edge of the plain and simple, if I’m not poet enough to articulate beauty even in the sharp thorns of life, if I’m not poet enough to recognize the Creator’s brilliance in every molecule, then it is my poverty I’m accusing, not his.

Back to work then.  There is a life to be lived, a world to experience and words to be written.

And it is good to think we have all this to come back to, this place which is all our own.