Over the last half-week, I’ve felt just a small pin-sized hole in my heart, ever since I read about our governor firing everyone who worked for our state arts commission. Knowing how this one action affects hundreds of people’s livelihoods and thousands of people’s quality of life just hurts, and I don’t know what to do with the hurt. It is not a hole made of death, but certainly some grief.
Meanwhile, some friends of mine just try to get themselves from one moment to the next while authorities search the lake for their missing brother or uncle. Meanwhile, another friend and his family cope with this friend’s overwhelming chemotherapy treatments. Meanwhile, another friend faces his first spring without his beloved, who died this winter. Meanwhile, there are thousands of other meanwhiles.
Laura and me on one of the tree's branches
I have no doubt that we all have some holes in our hearts: fresh or old, microscopic or large enough to poke our heads through. It’s just the nature of being human, of being alive in bodies that slowly or quickly stop working and on a planet blossoming and icing over, living and dying in a million small specifics all the time. But like this oak tree, we can also reach further than we realize, carry more than we know, and unfurl ourselves anew.
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