Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End? by Mary Oliver My mind feels a little hollow, the weight of the month is breathing on me. I keep pondering the word march, this idea that we all progress steadily forward. But what about the past? By moving forward do we abandon what we leave behind? I’m struggling to reconcile the past, while living and embracing the present.
Mary Oliver’s words, especially in this poem, delineates my ambivalence with the dance between the past and present. Most certainly it speaks to my constant preoccupation of how we all have the capacity to move forward, despite what we have experienced in the past. Just yesterday, I realized that I’ve lost two grandmothers, two grandfathers, and my own father. They are gone, but I continue to march on. The same will happen to my own daughter. When I and her father are no longer, she will forge ahead. The pain of contemplating this truth is far too much for me, as I cannot imagine a world where we don’t all occupy the same space. I am certain my father and my grandparents had the same contemplation.
But despite the obvious somberness of this realization, in a very grand way I am filled with hope. It’s knowing that the dance has no beginning or end, that life will continue, despite the past or the future as the circle of breath endures. I believe that truth wills me to march.
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What provides you with the sustenance to march despite what has happened to you in the past? Does any part of Oliver’s poem speak to you? Why?
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
Rudri, I empathize with your struggle to make sense of the blatant impermanence of life. Like others, I have patches of the past filled with tears and labored letting go (and dread the looming possibility of having to once again go through anything similar in the near future). I take solace in the steadfast (though slow) fading that only time can offer. Also, the work that I do is so filled with forward visioning (not to mention some of the best people one could ever know in a lifetime) and along the way, I glimpse sparks of hope.
Incidentally, I am going through a phase where I’m reading anything Mary Oliver has written so this is a treat to see her poetry on your blog!
Thinking of you in this weighty and waterlogged month of march…
Thanks so much for your support. Those glimmers of hope are what perpetuate me to keep moving forward. I certainly am grateful that these glimmers appear in the most unexpected ways.
Glad you are reading Oliver. Any favorites? Thanks for your kind words Belinda. It means so much.
It’s funny you should contemplate the reconciling of the past and future as three generations of women will occupy the same home in a few days, and it has made me think about my place in the middle. My daughter’s world will be alien to me as mine is to my mother’s – a sign that forging ahead binds and separates us at once. But I don’t see a choice otherwise do you?
Marching forward, endless footsteps in these sands of time, brought people like you and me together in the same community even though we’ve technically never even met. And there will be new wonders tomorrow.
That makes me excited and scared at the same time. But for the sake of our forward momentum, I’m leaning towards the former.
I like the way you inject hope into the march. You are right. This blogosphere community has reached out in extraordinary ways. It’s the connections I share here with you and others that comfort me in my march ahead. Thanks friend.
That hope IS what keeps us moving forward despite all else. It’s a wondrous thing.
I guess it helps me to know that the world will still turn and my children will forge ahead, even when I’m gone.
I think you’re right, no beginning, no end, a circle. We don’t have to let go of the past to move forward, only accept it.