Dear Starlight,
River sitting has become my ritual.
Each morning, I walk down the hill from my home to a silver, washed-ashore log at the river's edge. I sit, listen, and look toward the sky, the mountains, and the flowing current. No day is ever the same, no hour is ever the same, no minute, no moment is ever the same.
Last year, I began to notice a beaver swimming by. At first, it was occasional. But my curiosity about where he was going and who he might be began drawing me to the river as much as the rising and setting sun.
I started to notice his routine. Which meant I was forming one, too.
This rhythm deepened last fall after a weekend listening to David Whyte recite his poetry. Inspired by his "Blessing of the Morning Light," I began bringing a notebook and writing my own morning blessings.
One day, as I walked up the hill with my small, tattered notebook in hand, I wondered: Could this be my work? Could this be enough?
Two weeks ago, I stumbled into my beloved book club nest, where a few hens and I rustle our feathers and gab about fashionable female novelists. That night, we were a smaller group than usual. The conversation tilted—from the book—into the question: What would you do if you blew up your life?
I spoke first. Lately, my "what if" has felt less like fantasy and more like an emerging truth.
"I think I'm blowing mine up," I said. Cackles.
"What for?" someone asked.
"To write sonnets to beavers."
Joking—not joking.
Suddenly, my friend Jenny Offill's eyes lit up. "Oh! My first book was a children's book, and the main character had a thing for beavers." Then she slipped away from the table while the rest of us told our own surprising and silly beaver stories, laughter weaving us closer.
Jenny returned with a small beaver figurine. "I give all my writing students a charm," she said. "But I've never given away the beaver—I love it too much. But here—I'm giving it to you."
At that moment, it felt like a portal opened. Like the joke was a spell. Like Jenny—effortlessly ineffable Jenny—had just ordained my most magical truth.
The conversation continued to swirl and braid across unexpected threads: Each of us, it turned out, had a family story involving psychosis or dementia. We found ourselves discussing communication, animism, and the spaces between things. It felt as if secrets were webbing us closer into Indra's gossamer net, each of us a star or drop of dew reflecting the light of another.
I went home and ordered Jenny's book.
Then I Googled: What is a sonnet?
I remembered the poets at Bernadette Mayer's writing group, bringing in sonnets I couldn't recognize as such. It's taken me a long time to identify myself as a writer, primarily because grammar has been a tangle of nonsense to me. I cannot talk about writing in the language of how-to-write–at least not yet.
When I read how to write a sonnet, I broke it down into crumbs and then smaller still. I still can't confidently tell you what a stressed syllable is, even though each line needs ten of them. A sonnet is a dance, a routine. Steps and structure. Once upon a time, I didn't believe I could follow a routine.
I crafted a sonnet—a first draft—for Jenny, for the beaver, for love.
The Beavers Work
What was it that so silently slipped by me?
Time could not tell until I saw a tail
It smacked the still water—what could it be?
It glided softly upstream with no sail
Many days I waited patiently
I watched the river ripple and curtail
At times a floating brown shape—just a tree
Still I sat and listened to the gale
I checked my watch and felt arising glee
A brown shape passed—some creature! Oh, all hail!
Then, at seven, a furry majesty!
I've come to know the beaver's daily trail
Day upon day, I've grown to understand
That I belong here, with the river's hand
This morning in yoga, I heard a Rumi poem about turning toward the sun. I felt it as a benediction—a gift he shared with us all some hundred years ago. Maybe turning toward the sun isn't just a metaphor. As I watch the beaver swim to his daily destiny I sit on the log, watching the sun rise and fall and I feel the invitation to be born again, day after day.
I’m thinking blowing up your life is like a sunburst: light shattering a complicated cover-up, revealing a simple beauty that's already there.
