the basket

I love this poem and it's so fitting as I try to find my own grace in the midst of unknown chaos going on in my body. Yesterday was my first appt. with the Neurologist and today is MRI #1.  I vowed that "fear won't live here", but it's hard to escape fully......

the basket
by Colleen Wainwright

Everyone has her basket.

And in that basket
are all the things
a body gets
in a lifetime:

The long legs
the natural grace

The way with words
or people
or numbers
or animals

The force field that makes money
or love
or ideas
or children
come to them first

The gene soup
that makes eyes blue
stomachs sturdy
loins fruitful
brains prodigious

Even the luck—
the ponies
the Kojak parking
the pair of pants on sale
or the person of their dreams available
at the exact moment
where need and want meet—
even that
is in the basket.

There will be days
when you look down at your basket and marvel
at the wonderful
wonderful
things inside

And there will be days
when you cannot bring yourself to look 
at all
or rather
where the only place you can look
is at the basket next to you
and with longing.

But every day
someone is looking at your basket
with longing

Every day
someone would trade baskets with yours
sight unseen

I have been
in all of those places
and mostly
I am grateful
for the grace
that forgave my foolishness

This is my basket
to carry
and uncover
layer by layer
day by day
year by year

And sometimes
story by story.

May your basket overflow
with beautiful things
of incomparable joy
and wonder

And when it does not
may you be visited
by the same grace that sat down beside me
to show me the beauty
and the joy
and the wonder
I could not see

Remember all the amazing gifts in YOUR basket today.
xo
Lauren