What Does It Take?

Tuesday, January 27, 2009 [Today is a positive day on the Kabbalistic calendar]

I was reviewing my manuscript this week and stopped at one poem called 'People Beaching'.  It was written almost five years ago, ten days after receiving my final radiation treatment.  What a crazy time those eight and a half months were.  Quite a blur.  The expression "the Lord works in mysterious ways" could definitely apply.  I had started studying spirituality almost two years prior to being diagnosed with cancer. What an unexpected safety net!  The meditations and lessons that I had learned certainly provided a haven during those challenging days.  

So, sitting on the beach that afternoon and looking around as though for the very first time, everything appeared to be brighter and more beautiful than before.  I didn't question it, I just grabbed my notepad and pen from out of my beach bag and began to write.  When the poem was completed, it dawned on me. Hadn't all of the sights and sounds of the beach been as wonderful the last time we'd visited?    

 

The gifts that we receive each and every day; sight, sound, smell, taste and touch - are these to be taken for granted?  These things are big!  What does it take to appreciate, day after day?  Do we have to have something taken away before we can realize how great it is?  

Sadly that is sometimes the case.  I am reminded of a story about a young, married woman who complained to her rabbi that she needed a bigger house.  The poor woman and her husband had seven children that shared a very small home with their dog and cat.  When called upon for advice, the rabbi suggested that their cow be brought in from the pasture and placed in the already crowded domicile.  The woman was shocked but followed the advice.  Two days later she returned to consult the rabbi.  She was beside herself, what with the lack of space, but returned home only to add to the already filled rooms two goats.  This went on for the entire week.  By Sunday of that week the seams of the mud and straw walls were bursting with the additions of a chicken, a rooster, a lamb and a horse.  Sunday morning she ran into the rabbi's study and shouted that she could no longer take it and was about to go stark raving mad!  The rabbi calmly told her to remove all of the animals.  Again, the woman did as she was told.  That evening she mentioned to her husband that she never realized just how roomy a house they had! 

Here is my poem, written at the pinnacle of a new and more appreciated life..............

People Beaching

Pretty beige sand in mashed potato mounds

Iridescent pigeons, dandy dollar rounds.

A dozen white fish jumping way above the waves

Escaping barracudas' munchy, mouthy graves.

Double para sailors, dangling toes so brown

Twenty digits pointing, far above the ground.

Kites and dogs and Frisbees, streaking 'cross the scape

Bathers preen and gesture while the boyfriends video tape.

Sandy sea shell castles, turrets partially crumble

Brightly costumed skim boarders, taking salty tumbles.

Lacy, frothy, curly waves, depleted by the shore

Out-of-towners lay about, and some begin to snore.

Runners, joggers, walkers, bodies bound in motion

Scent of cocoa butter and aloe vera lotion.

Beach balls bounding on the breeze

Footballs tossed with graceful ease

All the sights and sounds do please

The people of the beach.

Deborah Desser-Herchan

April 11, 2004

Wishing you light and love.