Barbara Garay's Blog

It is our struggles that open our eyes, that take us to a place of overcoming, of learning, of flying.  Embrace the struggle and persist through it, and most importantly, learn through it.  Only by holding the lessons it teaches can the struggle ever be something beautiful and meaningful to our lives.

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We must learn to rest

our weathered hands,

ease our wilting hearts,

and forgive the spectres

of our past mistakes.

Tranquility comes

when we learn

to be gentle

with ourselves.

 

| Barbara Garay.

 

Forgiving another is never easy.  But forgiving yourself, at times, may be even harder.  See, we are too hard on ourselves and in being too hard we end up hardening our hearts.  Tranquility comes when we start to be more gentle on ourselves.

 

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Born from ashes,

bathed in dirt,

I rise into a sky

that requires

iron wings to fly.

Ashes | Barbara Garay © 2018

 

Inevitably, we all will experience the moment our face meets ground, our soul swims deep within the ashes, and our embers begin to lose their spark as they start to extinguish. Part of being alive is experiencing the moment we’ve hit rock bottom.  But it is in this moment that we realize our fate is in our hands and what comes next is determined by our reaction to it.  This is a large vein that gives life to my thoughts.  It is also a large theme in most of my poems.  Because, this is an ideal I imbue my life with.

I approach the tragedies of my life knowing that what follows from the bottom is to go back up. The opposite of a fall is always to stand back up.  There is another option, of course, but that is not an option at all for me anymore.   And writing is the way that I heal and the way that I take myself out of that darkness.

But over my many falls, I’ve actually grown to embrace the fall as the most beautiful moment of all.  It is in that moment that you truly understand who-you-are. It is in that moment that you truly understand the depths of your resilience and the strength of your will-to-fight and will-to-live. Amor fati, baby. Love your fate. You can’t change it, but you can bloom so beautifully from it as you control the way you react to it.

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[image error]Image found on internet.  I do not own rights to this image.

It is so easy to get enchanted by the glitz and glitter and gold that appears to wrap a particular human, ie, celebrity, inspirational character who appears to be too perfect, public figure, etc. I’ve never been one to idolize a human though, nor do I have desire to meet a famous face that inspires me because I know that gold will rub right off of their skin and reveal the human within. And to be human means to be flawed. To be human means to disappoint. And when we fall in love, we should fall in love with the knowledge that we are falling in love with an imperfect being and understand that to love a being as such will come with challenges. To love a being as such calls forth also to love their imperfections.  So be ready to be disappointed by them. 

See, I live by the ideal that we all should strive for perfection, for perfecting our souls, but we may never reach that goal. And that’s OK.  That is why I will never place another on a pedestal, I know, they are just as imperfect as I am, striving for perfection just as much as I am, and failing just as much as I am. Because we are human. That’s what we do. We try, we fail, we learn, and we try again.

 

 

“The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, “Letters to a Young Poet.”