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Blessings are where we find them. The gift is in learning to recognize them.
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Yesterday as I headed toward another fairly disjointed and disappointing animation session with six boys (makes me realize how important a coed group is for a good workshop– the girls are more creative and take more chances and it spurs the boys on, and the energy is much better than in this weird little boy’s club– ten is also a far better number than six) I was feeling like crap, physically and emotionally.
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An affable but irresponsible idiot from a local film school was coming in to shoot the session, against my better judgment, and I’d had to draft a legal paper for him to sign to protect myself if he tries to do anything more with his half-assed student project than submit it for his grade. I was really feeling up against it, up against everything.
On the crosstown train, toward the end of my trip, a woman sat next to me with her 3 year-old son. What I saw filled my heart with wonder and joy, it changed my mood instantly and completely and the rest of the day I’d been dreading went fine. I wrote this afterwards in my journal:
Climbed up on
his large brown mother
his small hands reaching
his small bright face tilted up
reaching
kissing the top of her large upper lip,
her nose, her cheek
balled in a beautiful smile
and she kissed his small
smiling face
and he held on as she
brushed her lips over his profile
and began to sing
softly and kiss him back
as he kissed her
and stroked her face
I was reminded
hours later
after telling her
“you two are a blessing
to everyone on this train”
and as she smiled
another beautiful smile
and told her dumbfounded
young son to thank me,
as the doors closed and I walked on,
after colossal patience
with idiot school boys
and listening long
to unhappy details
from an old friend,
my friend reminded me
the lives of the children
of the wealthy
ain’t no crystal stair neither
and I should keep in mind
the stress, neglect and childhood pain
I might soothe
in them too
neither should I scorn
their possibly unlikable parents’
money
which would help ease
the unbearable worry of poor Sekhnet
who righteously agonizes
over my great gift
for not making a living.
gratuitousblahg 