You Do Not Have To Be Good

16th February 2012 Thursday

Some lines from Mary Oliver’s poem The Wild Geese drum in my head like a tattoo....

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

The morning is overcast, dull grey. After shopping for what seems like forever, after taking the car for it’s MOT, after making lunch, after writing emails..... I stop being good. I make a cup of tea, break off four squares of dark chocolate, go upstairs, sneak under the duvet and start a new book with the pussy cat heavy as guilt on my tummy. My book is The Help by Katheryn Stockett. From the first sentence I’m hooked.When my husband comes home I say I haven’t made supper so he climbs into bed beside me and we stay there till it’s time to go to our Deeksha meditation group.

Where all the love in the room and the beauty of the music unhinges me and I fall into a wide aching cavern inside me - listening for my father - hearing only whispers of him, echoing down the years.