I seem to be on a run of portraits here. Maybe it's that time of year. I don't know. But when my friend Dorothy emailed me her brand new poem as a New Year's gift last night, I knew I wanted to share it with you. So I was thinking of her poem when I took this self portrait.


Sudden Turns

I want to live my life all over again, to begin again,
to be utterly wild.
(Mary Oliver, “A Meeting”)

Do you want to live your life again,
to let that wild thing inside you
have its way this time,
to not hold back when the invitation
came on the silver platter,
the one which would have changed
your life forever.

Do you wish you had stood up
and said your truth
in a louder voice
even when the others didn’t want to hear
what you were saying?
Do you wish you had told them
how wrong they were,
how they didn’t understand?

Do you wish you had picked up
and moved to the mountains,
even if the snow blocked the door
in winter and the streams froze over,
and gone swimming naked in the pond
that summer with the stranger
who stopped by,
or hitchhiked through Greece with
a backpack and a smile.

Would you give up all the things
you did in exchange for what you refused,
surrender all those treasures in your
memory box,
the times when you were,
in fact,
quietly, suddenly wild,
took the unexpected turns in the path
which brought you here,
the place you are now,
this life you love
and would not trade.

Dorothy Walters
December 31, 2007