When uncertainty surrounds us
It’s been a whirl of a week, and I feel as if I’m just trying to catch my breath. There is a lot of uncertainty swirling around, and it was especially intense last week. As we move toward the midterm elections here in the United States, while watching what’s unfolding around the world, I am noticing in myself how I have to walk in the dark, knowing that I simply don’t know what will happen.
This is always the case, I know, and there are times when I don’t know feels harder.
This is a short piece I wrote in a recent writing workshop here in the Online Writers’ Studio. It was written to an invitation after reading Maya Stein’s lovely poem called “in praise of I don’t know.”
Maybe it might hold something for you this week.
***
I Don’t Know
What will happen in seven days? I don’t know descends like a pall and rests upon my shoulders. A million memes, a thousand thoughts, and a hundred headlines between now and November 3rd, between January 2025 and now.
And I am tired. I am weary.
We all are.
What will happen in seven days? I don’t know. But what I do know is that I will continue to love the stranger and to let my heart fall open when I hear someone is hurting or hungry. I will continue to reach in my purse at street corners, fanning five-dollar bills toward pleading hands.
I will state what is real and what is not.
Even though I don’t know what will happen, I will continue to write, with my own pen, pushing away the artificial they say is inevitable. I will write it all – the beautiful, the hard, the complicated.
I will write what is true and what is not.
What is true is that we are all connected. What is not is that there is an us and that there is a them. What is true is that there is only an us. There is no them, no matter convenient or easy it might feel otherwise.
I will continue to lace my thoughts with kindness, smoothing their edges, remembering that everything created in this world begins with a thought.
And I will continue to do what I’m called to do, one step at a time, one day after another. I will do this all, even though I can’t see far ahead, even though I don’t know.
**
(NB - Don't forget to scroll down for this week's writing invitation.)
Writing Invitation
I encourage you to open your notebook and answer this week's writing invitation with whatever wants to come through.
Photo used in writing invitation by Rachel Oliveri on Unsplash
Online Writers’ Studio for Women
If you’re interested in receiving more writing invitations and having a place to write on a more consistent basis, you can find a new one every day and the space to see where it takes you in my daily co-writing sessions, which are just one part of the Online Writers’ Studio for women. The Studio also has regular writing workshops, weekly intuitive energy readings, and meditative writing sessions.
Otherwise, come back next week, and I’ll share another one.
Banner photo by Elizabeth Jamieson on Unsplash