someone, again, suing Oprah for something…the news goes on. The days unfold. There is trouble in the world. Hey. There’s trouble in my world. Chatter. Noise. Conflict. Opportunities and fast paced moments fly so fast we miss catching them. Someone said to me, “You are always so calm. You must be wise.” I smile. And then I can’t help it. I laugh. I consider saying, “You are mistaking being stunned for calm.” But I know that’s not true. Not quite.

But here’s the truth as close as I can get to it today. I am often calm. I am not always calm. I experience frustration, uncertainty. Creative conundrums. Irrational exchanges. My life is not “easy” but it is perfect…for me. It’s MY life. I choose it every day. And within it, I rarely do things I do not want to do. That’s the grace of my life. So I am not watching Dancing With The Stars, but I do dance. Daily. I keep my pulse on the unrest in the world and I serve by sending letters and care packages to 23 deployed soldiers. I don’t know the specifics of this current lawsuit against the inimitable Oprah Winfrey…but I am grateful that she has a team of folks around her who watch her back. And help keep her on a certain track. Because her track CERTAINLY helps and brings a peculiar ease to large portions of the world. If for no other reason than the woman screams her message daily, “READ A BOOK.” So…the world knocks. And I answer in the ways that I am able. The “answers” seem small: but they make a big difference in the way my blood pressure manages and how my heart beats.

To those who know that my serenity comes because of and in spite of the challenges in my life: thank you. And to those who think my peace is because I am naturally calm or that my life is easy…this is for you:

A poem of Apparent Contradiction
Ha. Is there some cosmic editor considering the lines of my life asking in red, inked loudly in the margin, “Mixed metaphor?”
I like to say I am an apparent contradiction. That implies that actually, beneath the appearance – I am not.
Yet I am.
Contradictory – Mary, Mary quite contrary, doomed to let your garden grow with hell’s bells and see-saw knells and unstrung possibilities like scattered pearls…but in a row.
The girl who never owned a television hasn’t read a book in weeks and yet can recite her favorite parts of NCIS re-runs. Order and integrity in cadence with years of disorganized papers piled in organized bins – avoiding the harmless effects of wind.
A swung open heart and resistance to neighbors come ‘a knocking without an advance call. In a bowl of tolerance mixed with impatience, affection sits side by side with hungry impotence and listen as boundless creativity knocks on the door of an emptied room.
There’s no apparent to it: The contradictions make the Who of Me and the How of My. Life.