What I Really Want

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Without further ado today’s pocket.

Earlier this week, while I was participating in Nadia Colburn’s 31 Day Mindfulness Writing Course, where the sessions are recorded online, I listened to her read Rumi’s poem “The Breeze at Dawn.” I happened to be up early, and I was outside, so I was kind of listening to a poem while living a poem. It was a powerful writing session for me, and it raised some questions I’m still considering about what it means to want the life you have, how to embrace both the sweet and the sour that comes with that life, whether wanting the life you have is a privilege or a practice of gratitude or a bit of both… These are topics I would love to talk with you about in the comments if you have time.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate.

Here’s my poem.

What I Really Want

“You must ask for what you really want,” Rumi says 
so, I ask
and a voice comes to me like the “The Breeze at Dawn”

I want laughter, so much laughter
I want peace and space and solitude too
I want to make homemade vegetable soup and broth with everything I find in the fridge when I come home after a week away
I want to hug my teenage son and laugh with him in the kitchen when he apologizes for complaining about going to the store
I want a daughter who wants to spend time with me
I want a puppy who sits on my lap, in a too small chair and then puts his whole face right under my hands so I can barely type a word
I want to kiss my husband in the middle of the day, and I want one of us to sneak in the smallest amount of tongue, the slightest bit of extra lip

I want a wide-open blue sky
and verdant blooming trees
and a backyard transformed overnight with too many colors to count
I want a yoga class and a local bookstore where they know my name
I want a friend to play tennis with

I want budding laurel trees to offer me privacy while I write my life 
wrapped up in a blanket on the porch listening to birdsong
wondering what the day will bring
and if anything it brings could be better than this

Oh yes, there are other things…
There are always other things
but what could be more pressing
than waking up to realize you want the life you have