hard to want to stay — and want to fall
Oh yeah, the serenity prayer is a classic, and cliché as it is I believe it holds great wisdom.
This week my post is even shorter than usual. I’m in Oslo over the weekend for a capoeira event.
You talk about courage and change. A good friend once told me, when I was going through rough patch of my life, that pain + reflection = growth. That helped me. Growth is change for the better. The same sentiment is expressed in one of my favorite poems. It’s in Swedish by a poet named Karin Boye. I only remember the first lines, and I’ve only ever read it in Swedish, but roughly translated it says “of course it hurts when buds burst, why else would spring hesitate”.
Growth can be temporarily painful, but things get better if we persist.
Fun fact, I though my flight to Oslo was on Thursday, so I got up at 3am Thursday morning, took the bus to the airport at 4am, got to the airport just after 6am for my 7.40 flight. Tried to check in but it just wouldn’t work. Asked the staff for help but they didn’t manage to figure it out either. Or, not until one of them realized that I was there on the wrong day, my flight wasn’t until Friday morning 7.40. I guess it is better to be one day too early than one day too late.
Looked up the translation of the poem. It is beautiful in English as well, not as beautiful as in Swedish, but beautiful. I’ll leave you with it, and a reminder that pain + reflection = growth.
Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking.
Why else would the springtime falter?
Why would all our ardent longing
bind itself in frozen, bitter pallor?
After all, the bud was covered all the winter.
What new thing is it that bursts and wears?
Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking,
hurts for that which grows
and that which bars.
Yes, it is hard when drops are falling.
Trembling with fear, and heavy hanging,
cleaving to the twig, and swelling, sliding -
weight draws them down, though they go on clinging.
Hard to be uncertain, afraid and divided,
hard to feel the depths attract and call,
yet sit fast and merely tremble -
hard to want to stay
and want to fall.
Then, when things are worst and nothing helps
the tree’s buds break as in rejoicing,
then, when no fear holds back any longer,
down in glitter go the twig’s drops plunging,
forget that they were frightened by the new,
forget their fear before the flight unfurled -
feel for a second their greatest safety,
rest in that trust
that creates the world.
— Karin Boye
