Fresh Starts and Silence

You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call “failure” is not the falling down, 

but the staying down. 

-Mary Pickford-

We deem those happy who, from the experience of life, have learned to bear its ills without being overcome by them.

-Juvenal-

Mary Pickford was a silent-movie star, and she also was one of founders of the Motion Picture Academy. Juvenal was a Roman poet who was born in 55 AD. Not only do the quotes from these two give me pause, so do their connections to two things I treasure: silence and poetry.

I am recovering from the scrapes and aches of my fall Saturday morning. I was fortunate to get back up and keep running. At other times in my life, my toxic and repetitive thoughts, along with unreasonable expectations I placed on myself, caused me to fall into ruts and holes that pulled me down and kept me down, sometimes for years. Getting up and out took much more than simply standing up and brushing myself off.

But in ways, that is what I was doing. Standing up to myself, the “never enough” and perfectionistic parts of me that lacked self-compassion. It just took time. And silence. Getting comfortable in the silence so the painful emotions could be revealed and the healing could begin. Today, I welcome silence. I am comfortable in it.

Resilience has come through perseverance, processing, reflecting, and writing. Lots of writing.

Poems are where my writing started, at age 11, and writing them has been woven throughout my decades as a writer. Poems have helped me bear life’s ills without being overcome by them. In the darkest times, the deepest holes, writing has always been one of the things that brought. me back to the light, to revelations that brought authentic grief as well as authentic joy.

That’s my story today. What is yours?

See you back here the middle of next week. Onward!