reflection

Receiving a gift as an act of kindness requires faith. It also requires risk, and an acceptance of the unknown.  Accepting kindness from strangers well – without suspicion – is a gift in itself.

I suppose it hits every generation, too – when the pendulum swings, or the tide turns – and what you knew is only familiar now. You are an immigrant in your own country:

Sometimes our own bodies are the battlefield – the lines invisible, or shifting unpredictably.  Then again, maybe sometimes the battlefield as a metaphor can’t help at all to sooth our frantic hearts.  And all the armour is just… too heavy for the human body.

Or maybe peace is the sturdy framework for creative disorder? I think of the fortunate children who are “at peace with themselves” – noisy as hell, but secure and daring.