This afternoon, my youngest feels sick. We plan on canceling all the 4th of July events. Strangely, I browse blogs from 4th of July in the past several years, and I find that in 2011, this same daughter was sick in the same way on the same day.
I wrote this:
I’ll just begin by telling you a certain child in my family vomits seven times last night. This is the other child (not the one with the entirely different virus).
I don’t actually wake up this morning because I never actually went to bed.
Everyone complains. Everyone feels miserable, and to make matters worse, it’s a holiday! We’ll miss the bike parade, the hot dogs, the fireworks–everything.
Then I check my email, and a new friend sends me a link to her blog. She’s entitled it “Dwell in Possibility.” I think about the phrase all morning because it resonates deeply. I’ve heard the phrase before–from some distant place–that recalls a beautiful hoping in me.
Then I remember. It’s from Emily Dickinson. I love Emily Dickinson.
I dwell in Possibility —
A fairer House than Prose —
More numerous of Windows —
Superior — for Doors —
Of Chambers as the Cedars —
Impregnable of Eye —
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky —
Of Visitors — the fairest —
For Occupation — This —
The spreading wide of narrow Hands
To gather Paradise —
I read the poem again and again. Today, I choose to gather Paradise.