Navigating Life

Lately my soul has been restless-I feel worthless and bored with my life. These feelings brought me back to something I wrote a while back- As I walked along Shilshole Marina I began to think of all those boats... What good is a ship while warming her harbor? With that longing to rise up and stretch her broad white sails upon the restless sea? Indeed, I am a ship of torn sails from my journeys through the mighty oceans. In the midst of torturous winds and rains, my heart has ripped like those sails. Yet, in the solitude of the placid and tumultuous sea, my past has shaped me; in the tossing cold currents, my heart heals as the waves soften to rhythmic tidal lyres. My father once told me “if a poem made me cry, I knew I had to memorize it.” His love of poetry, his artistic sensitivities, and his life’s challenging journey has inspired me and shaped me into who I am today. This is one of his favorite poems (and mine): “My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; / It rains, and the wind i...