One Stubborn Layer at a Time, Episode 294

How do we find our way back to remembering who and what we really are, in the midst of lives that so easily call us into busyness, distraction, fear and the gnawing sense that something is always missing?

How might we speak with one another, and write, in a way that evokes one another's depth? And why it is that, in these days of an new explosion of machine-writing software tools such as ChatGPT, we need the honesty and generosity of writing and speaking to one another that can come only from our humanity - from the inside of this one, mysterious and infinitely precious experience of being alive.

This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

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Here’s our source for this week:

One Stubborn Layer at a Time

Peace finds me today, meets me 
in the clear waters of poets' words,
in the distant call of mourning dove, 
in the bursting buds of the old mossy oak. Even 

the black fly is an almost-welcome visitor, 
its relentless buzz challenging me to meet it again
and again. It flies up close to my open eyes
and asks—even this? 

The young men painting the house next door 
play their festive music and sing and sing, 
they sing as if not a thing in the world hurts, 
as if this singing moment is guaranteed.

Or maybe they sing because 
there is so much hurt 
in the world and none 
of it is guaranteed.

I love how, for once, I feel no need to justify
this not-doing, afternoon spent cradled 
in hammock's kind lap, pen and notebook close 
for when words decide to come—

and when they do, I catch one 
at a time, like a child catching snowflakes 
on her tongue. I say thank you 
for each one—

for what else but words point me back,
show me how to, one stubborn layer 
at a time, undress myself—how to dive naked 
into the clear waters of what is here.

Julia Fehrenbacher
www.juliafehrenbacher.com 
May 16th, 2023

Photo by Radek Grzybowski on Unsplash

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