It all has a purpose

Bethesda Terrace in Central Park, on a recent trip this winter

Holding my book in my hands still makes me sentimental sometimes. I am constantly chasing dreams – relentlessly. One after another.

But this is the dream I had since I was a little girl – realized. We’ll be coming up on a year since it was released, soon…

I wanted to share this stanza from the Tenth Elegy in Rilke’s incredible Duino Elegies, which are honestly just too stunning to put into words. I feel like I could read them a thousand times and still come up with something new to strike me.

“Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight,
let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.
Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart
fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful,
or a broken string. Let my joyfully streaming face
make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise
and blossom. How dear you will be to me then, you nights
of anguish. Why didn’t I kneel more deeply to accept you,
inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself
in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,
one season in our inner year–, not only a season
in time–, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil
and home.”