One morning you might wake up
to realize that the knot in your stomach
had loosened itself and slipped away,
and that the pit of unfulfilled longing in your heart
had gradually, and without your really noticing,
been filled in—patched like a pothole, not quite
the same as it was, but good enough.
Lynn Ungar, in her poem, “The Way It Is,” speaks of a situation that many of us might still find ourselves longing for–that morning when we wake up to find that we are more at ease, more whole, more connected with life. The events of the recent election and what is now proceeding from it likely leave many of us still unsettled, still ill at ease, still feeling disconnected.
I also think it’s true that we have past experiences where these words of hers are true and descriptive of what we have lived through. I particularly identify with the image of patched like a pothole, not quite the same as it was, but good enough. How many patched potholes can we each point to in our lives–not quite the same as it was, but with some distance, good enough?
Repair often happens in our lives like that. Time, and practice, the aid and help of community and individuals, the new insights that come only because of what we have been through all help to patch our life’s potholes. If you pass a hand or heart over the spot, you can still feel the bumps, but not quite the jar and rattling that the hole once made.
And in that moment it might occur to you
that your life, though not the way
you planned it, and maybe not even entirely
the way you wanted it, is nonetheless—
persistently, abundantly, miraculously—
exactly the way it is.
Repair happens in many ways, and it comes to mean many things for us, but somewhere along the way, in the process of repair, we discover that the way life is right now is my new way of being in the world. It’s been this new way for a while, and as I wonder how I got here, I feel the bumps, the patched potholes, and I remember. The process of what I have been through has brought me to a new place, and it is nonetheless–persistently, abundantly, miraculously–exactly the way it is.
~Bob Patrick
