Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

-- Naomi Shihab Nye

Live Like the Yukon

By the time I reached the sea, 

I knew I could do far worse than 

to live life like the Yukon: 

keep moving but find places to slow down. 

Don't go straight at the expense of meandering. 

Nurture others; accommodate 

both change and attrition.

Savor the element of 

surprise. Be gracious, 

accepting, resilient.

 - Jill Fredston, Rowing to Latitude

(arranged quote)

Lucky to Live

Perhaps, after seeing our beautiful photos
of this life unplugged,
on the road,
with our children -

perhaps, you think we are selfish
and lucky
and only indulging in this wanderlust for
ourselves.

Quite the contrary.

We live this life
with a small urn on our dashboard,
taking our son with us
in our hearts
every mile we drive
showing Aaro,
and his two sisters,
the wonders of the world.

We had hoped to share this majesty with him
in the flesh, but now we may do so
only in spirit.

We work hard to lead the life we do,
for our children,
to feel them, see them, smell them, hear them;
to guide them, learn from them,
to tuck them in as often as we can,
to experience as many slow mornings snuggled in together as possible.

This is not about holding tightly, but rather
savoring and experiencing these moments;
glorying in life, celebrating it, tasting it, embracing it.

We choose to live our lives to honor our son,
we choose to disengage from the whispering factory of fear,
we choose to listen to the deep truth inside, that yells -
LIVE! Damnit, GO and LIVE!

We are honoring what is our only guaranteed turn around the sun
this short and tender chance to flourish in the radiance,
this radiance, this spark called life.

If you are lucky - that spark may catch and grow.

So, yes, we are lucky,
lucky to see what is possible
in the darkest corners of loss,
lucky to see what can be made
when this spark of life is embraced,
when that light is allowed to shine.

-- Emily Harteau, who travels the world with her husband, Adam, and their two young girls, Colette and Sierra, posting their adventures on http://ouropenroad.com/
(arranged and edited quote, sourced from http://ouropenroad.com/torres-del-paine/)