rainy July, to date
Through a glass darkly--the phrase comes from the Apostle Paul, who explains that we cannot see, except obscurely, that when we look, it is only through a clouded version of what is real. When we die, perhaps, we will see clearly. Maybe Paul is sure about that. Someone I love was talking today about the young, the babies and the children, and how much closer they are to the mystery of what came before we took our first breath and began the process of forgetting. Or, to put it another way, of looking back through a glass darkly. The poet Joy Harjo talks about her experiences with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who remember her from other lives. We knew each other before, they tell her. It was a long winter in many ways, followed by a spring filled with loss. I don't know when to say the loss started, actually--it has been loud this whole year. We have lost too many people from my metastatic cancer group. When someone died last month, I was irrationally angry a