We Can Always Begin Again
One of my dear friends directs an organization that works with inner city youth.
These young people are often battered with repeated failures, but Chris believes in them, even when no one else does. He encourages them to believe in themselves, too.
“Always Begin Again,” he tells them. Over and over.
—–
I’m helping a woman finish her latest book. She’s old enough to be my grandmother, but whizzes around the internet like a pro and still hikes in the Andes. She sent me an email yesterday, along with the latest installment of her manuscript.
“This is so HARD,” she wrote.
‘But I have a sign up,” she continued, “that says ‘Failure can not tolerate persistence.” Got it from a wonderful book called The War of Art.’
—–
Andy is home. He called me today, and he sounded much better. People have taken good care of him, so he was calling around to check in, thank everyone. His client had paid his hotel bill last night, even though he hadn’t managed to finish their show. He added that Phillip has had some good days while he was gone, but that he himself hit another rough patch, coming home this afternoon to the empty house.
But he already has lots of things set up, lots of meetings with lots of people, for his business and to go over the estate, legal and financial things. A lot of mail had piled up while he was gone, too. I could hear him shuffling through it. He listed some of it for me: Paperwork about benefits. Insurance information for COBRA.
And the death certificate finally came.
“And, maybe,” he paused, “a grief counselor or something. That might be good.”
—–
There’s a quote on scrap of paper on my desk that I’ve been trying to decide what to do with. It keeps getting shuffled to the top of my piles. I heard it last fall from an arborist who was speaking to our group about how badly our area’s trees had suffered from a year of severe drought, last spring’s late freeze, and a summer of record-setting heat.
Then he smiled. “But, enough gloom and bad news. I recommend, as all of us do who have the perpetual gardener’s heart: replant next spring!”
Women still have an uneasy relationship with power and the traits necessary to be a leader. There is this internalized fear that if we are really powerful, we are going to be considered ruthless or pushy or strident—all those epithets that strike right at our femininity.
