But then, maybe I wasn’t — shaken from sleep by this morning’s earthquake in DC, that is.
Truth is, I’ve been waking up to heart-pounding stress dreams every day this week. I’m not sure why, but after I told my friend, Rima, she sent me this, sagely:
THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry
I hope you find peace.
Good timing — we just got back from the Catskills in upstate NY and we had a beautiful view of the mountains and a pond (complete with geese). I felt so much calmer there, even though our entire family of 33 was there. But I am sorry I missed the earthquake…
we went to the catskills as well this summer. i’m sure our experience at a family camp was not entirely unlike yours in the midst of 33 family members.
i wish there were a quiet, calm place in nature more accessible to us city dwellers!