Passage Thirty: At The Same Time
We all labor under difficulties.
We grow in difficult conditions.
The winters here are harsh.
What hurts hurts,
And there is no way around that.
There is no explaining that away,
No insight that diminishes the pain.
I have what my doctor calls
Cluster headaches.
That means I get migraines
Every day, sometimes, and sometimes not.
There are other things wrong
With my brain, as well.
I have problems learning,
And remembering, and with organization.
One could just say I am an idiot,
But it is more complicated than that.
I am other things, at the same time.
Some parts of me are underdeveloped.
Other parts are not.
As a result, I am gnarled and twisted,
Because I keep on trying, anyway.
We feel many different things,
And all for good reasons.
The point is not to get ourselves
All lined up and under control.
We are gnarled and twisted
For good reasons,
And what that shows about us,
When we can see it,
Is something beautiful.
Driving Cindy to work this morning,
She told me a story.
Jacob had been assigned to her class
Because of a behavior disorder.
He acted up and he acted out.
He made trouble for himself and others.
In Cindy's class, Jacob became friendly
With a classmate, Dale.
Cindy said that Dale
Has had a hard time learning to read,
That he has had to work ten times as hard
As others to make any progress at all.
Jacob took an interest in helping Dale,
And the situation has been good
For them both.
Cindy did not make this happen,
But she made it possible for them.
If I had to pick one of the three in this story
And say, "That is me," I could not.
I can identify with all three. I am all three,
In different ways, at the same time.
