This morning my feet seem nimble, even sure.  I trod down the steps and let the dog outside.  With the kettle boiling and the egg cooking, I open the door to let the staleness out into its sister air.  The stench of my locked house mingles with the heady fragrance of the morning dew.

The news blasts into the room with tales of death and woe.  The times when I’ve been injured flood into my mind and I think, yet here I am, unscathed.  Lumpy, scarred, and tender but alive.  I pour the coffee and breathe the freshness that has found its way to the kitchen through the open door.  My life careens in plunging peaks and valleys but I march on, fumbling, weak, unsure but still going.  Talk of Istanbul, talk of Orlando, a photograph on Facebook of my friend Beth’s son who died from one vicious careless action.  There but for the grace, I think; and put aside my work for just a few moments to sit on the porch.  Gratitude overwhelms me.

It’s the first day of the thirty-first month of My (Never-Ending) Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

 

 

“There But for the Grace”
By Wislawa Szymborska

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened sooner. Later.
Nearer. Farther.
It happened not to you.

You survived because you were the first.
You survived because you were the last.
Because you were alone. Because of people.
Because you turned left. Because you turned right.
Because rain fell. Because a shadow fell.
Because sunny weather prevailed.

Luckily, there was a wood.
Luckily there were no trees.
Luckily there was a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake,
a frame, a bend, a millimeter, a second.
Luckily a straw was floating on the surface.

Thanks to, because, and yet, in spite of.
What would have happened had not a hand, a foot,
by a step, a hairsbreadth
by sheer coincidence.

So you’re here? Straight from a moment still ajar?
The net had one eyehole, and you got through it?
There’s no end to my wonder, my silence.
Listen
how fast your heart beats in me.

Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh