Today, well, actually yesterday and the day before

For the month of June, I am participating in Trust 30, a challenge designed to celebrate Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 208th birthday, and to prove that i can trust myself. (really?) One prompt a day, just like in December with Reverb10. Only this one celebrates being the non-conformist. Which i am never been known to be. talk about a challenge. and of course the first thing i notice is how behind i am, already, before i even start.

May 31:

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

 
You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.

i'm sorry. honestly. i didn't say that enough. not at all. for all those words that hurt, for the actions that pierced you to pieces, even though on the outside you appeared to remain whole — all those lines that make up the puzzle of you undetectable — as if they didn't exist. 

you may have thought i didn't care, but i was only pretending.

oh, how i wish i could have fixed it, could have mended what's broken inside me and reached for you whole. but i never reached far enough inside myself to find the broken valve, to turn it off. 

but you loved me still. from the first day to this.

and yet, though deep inside me that rusty valve continues to leak, there are a thousand others pumping the good of me out into the world. can i tap into those instead, rerouting and reconnecting the moments when i got it right?

yes, you loved me still, and i didn't deserve it.

june 1:

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

Today I strolled & sweated, wept & rejoiced, embraced & retreated, giggled & sang, watched & waited, complained and supported, sent and received, and then received some more.




up next: today.