{"id":371,"date":"2004-04-28T23:03:17","date_gmt":"2004-04-29T06:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/04\/28\/a-gift\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:18:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:18:58","slug":"a-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/2004\/04\/28\/a-gift\/","title":{"rendered":"A Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since last Thursday, my personal life is topsy-turvy, with many heavy questions and choices pressing in and refusing to give way. Life can be such a challenge when one is walking the path with someone, trying to negotiate the turns. Work, love, progeny… We live in a world of innumerable choices, and I think that this cripples us. At the least, it weights us with greater responsibility for our decisions.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine has great talent for artwork and words. Despite the fact that she cares for her 14-month-old child 24\/7, she found time in the past week to make a small book of sorts, and on the pages she drew numerous intricate, colorful mandalas. In addition, she chose several poems and quotes that connected in her heart toward mine, one of which was by one of my favorite authors, May Sarton<\/a>. Another is a poem written by her mother, who died suddenly when my friend was in college. I went over to visit today and she surprised me with this gift. As soon as I read the first poem I began to cry, because it speaks so perfectly to me of myself, at this age. I cherish my friend’s empathy. I will refrain from sharing the poem her mother wrote, as I don’t have permission to reveal the author’s name. However, here is the poem which touches me deeply.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
Now I Become Myself<\/cite><\/center><\/p>\n

Now I become myself. It’s taken
\nTime, many years and places;
\nI have been dissolved and shaken,
\nWorn other people’s faces,
\nRun madly, as if Time were there,
\nTerribly old, crying a warning,
\n“Hurry, you will be dead before–”
\n(What? Before you reach the morning?
\nOr the end of the poem is clear?
\nOr love safe in the walled city?)
\nNow to stand still, to be here,
\nFeel my own weight and density!
\nThe black shadow on the paper
\nIs my hand; the shadow of a word
\nAs thought shapes the shaper
\nFalls heavy on the page, is heard.
\nAll fuses now, falls into place
\nFrom wish to action, word to silence,
\nMy work, my love, my time, my face
\nGathered into one intense
\nGesture of growing like a plant.
\nAs slowly as the ripening fruit
\nFertile, detached, and always spent,
\nFalls but does not exhaust the root,
\nSo all the poem is, can give,
\nGrows in me to become the song,
\nMade so and rooted so by love.
\nNow there is time and Time is young.
\nO, in this single hour I live
\nAll of myself and do not move.
\nI, the pursued, who madly ran,
\nStand still, stand still, and stop the sun!<\/p>\n

–May Sarton<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since last Thursday, my personal life is topsy-turvy, with many heavy questions and choices pressing in and refusing to give way. Life can be such a challenge when one is walking the path with someone, trying to negotiate the turns. Work, love, progeny… We live in a world of innumerable choices, and I think that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,28,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-humanities","category-quotes"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10803,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/10803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynpetroharper.com\/mindfullife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}