Recently I've taken to asking myself the question, What's the worst thing that's happened to me? And when I look back over my life, I can't think of anything at first. It's like illness, or childbirth. Once the discomfort is past, the negative associations seem to vanish as well. I'm in good health. I spent the night secure from the cold snuggled in warm blankets. The larder overflows and I have the luxury of time to pursue anything I want, or nothing at all.
Eventually like shadows growing tentacles they creep back into my memory. The worst times seem related to betrayal. I have felt betrayed by others. I in turn have betrayed those I had a responsibility to protect and whom I love. But also shame and guilt. Perhaps they are all the same. Tears well up and I am distraught as the pictures of those times come back into focus.
I don't linger in this dark space but rather use it to contrast the peace and joy that now fill my life. I watch my husband, my loving companion and friend, through the doorway seated at his computer in the next room bathed in strokes of soft light like a Rembrandt. The mood is enhanced with the rise and fall of a piano concerto by Dimitri Shostakovich that wash over me in warm waves as on a sun-swept shore.
I read somewhere that the deeper the sorrow one has borne, the greater the capacity for joy. I like that. I like that a lot.
