December 23, 2009
Ten days of joy: Day 8
Today I was out doing my holiday shopping, not at the mall (thank the Gods!), but in the artsy small village of New Hope, PA. The recession seems to be hitting the place pretty hard — a number of stores were closed, and since it was a weekday afternoon the streets and sidewalks were far less crowded than they usually are when I visit on the weekends, giving the place something of a ghost-town atmosphere. But there was a moment, picking my way along the brick sidewalk, being careful of the lingering patches of ice and slush, when I suddenly felt the quiet of the streets, the warmth of the winter sun, heard the whisper of the creek spilling over the lip of the millhouse waterfall, on its way to join the Delaware River — a moment of being perfectly awake and aware of my surroundings, not lost in distractions or busyness or priorities or plans. And with that shock of awareness, a slightly bittersweet pang of joy: the twinge of seeing the processes of time and change at work on a familiar place, wearing away some things and leaving others behind, like wind and water carving outcroppings out of layered stone, and yet at the same time a piercing sense of vibrancy. This is a place where people live, both in good circumstances and in bad. It’s real. It’s alive. And so am I!
Dua Netjer! Dua Bast! Nekhtet!