Worlds side by side

The leaves are almost all gone from the front of my house. But on the side, in the corridor between two buildings, the golden trees still sway and shimmer. Nobody told them winter is here. I sit in my house, contemplating the gold, in awe.

I’ve been comfort watching Call the Midwife, which often has me in tears. For those who know the show, Sister Monica Joan is one of the most wonderfully drawn characters I’ve ever encountered on the small screen, a poet and a philosopher, who feels so keenly the suffering of the world, and somehow, in spite of her sometimes tenuous grip on what is real, and also because of it, she is able to transmute pain into the purest hope. It really is a beautifully written show. I pause so often, just gobsmacked by a line spoken by one the midwives, wimpled and not, who attend the thresholds of birth and death with such fierce and unstinting courage, feminist warriors for other women, for families, for love. 

Also, I got dressed up last Saturday evening to see the Justice's star turn on Broadway. I put on make up and lipstick and even blended on concealer and blush with a brush the way my glam young friend Gabbie showed me, so we took a picture. Then, this morning I read a poem about Gaza by Joseph Fasano. It broke me all over again. The children are still dying. The land still burns. What will become of our souls?