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Adding You to Your To-Do List
Somewhere between, say, brushing your teeth, taking the car in, and paying the cellphone bill—try adding Derek's Walcott's classic poem Love After Love to your to-do list today. The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. There are so many reasons his poem is so moving: the idea of nurturing (instead of denying) yourself with food and drink, the idea of re-meeting who you were (and who you still are) despite all the years of disconnection due to ego and its insidious double, insecurity. Most of all I love this idea of feasting on your life, from the wonderful moments (the love letter) to the revealing moments (the photographs) to the painful moments (the desperate notes). Let's all feast today, even if that feast takes place while we're buying coffee filters or "making" a premade rotisserie chicken for dinner. Reflection happens everywhere—even in the aisle of the supermarket. Advertisement
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