In part because I don’t run while listening to music, my mind on the road wanders with the sights and sounds, which often, especially on a long run, lead to reverie, to what Mary Ruefle, in her poem, “Voyager,” cheers-laments, “still strewn with miracles,” a line I read this month (March 13) on my way into work at The Post, which is how it is with me these days, Passover and Easter approaching, deep in thought about the past and family, my parents, in their eighties now, my sister and my brother all in Canada, and my daughter, K, who we learned only a few days ago, much to our excitement, that she would be home for part of the holidays.
So it was beshert, Yiddish for something meant to be, that I picked up an advance reading book of essays at The Post this month, titled, “The Faraway Nearby” by Rebecca Solnit http://amzn.to/YCyTa1. I recognized the name as the writer of a cogent, insightful DIARY essay published recently about how the San Francisco street and local economy vibe has morphed into the Google Republic http://bit.ly/WvvyN1.
As Solnit reports in “The Faraway Nearby,” when Georgia O’Keefe quit New York for New Mexico, her landscape muse, she left behind friends and loved ones, who would receive letters from her that carried those words – from the faraway nearby – as part of her salutation.
It strikes me that that is the most healthy and wise observation of a state of mind necessary to hold those who are absent during those times when you are missing family and friends. That your loved ones may not be at home but they are not simply faraway, either. Their presence, how we love them by honoring them, our memories are as alive as those among us whose family is not faraway nearby but simply nearby.
Next: Running for Your Life: I Hate to Leave This Beautiful Place
