Ramble Home

“Pay attention. Be astonished. And tell about it. We’re soaked in distractions. The world didn’t have to be beautiful. We can and should think about that beauty and be grateful.” - Mary Oliver

The world was just too busy. Is too busy. Sometimes you need to take a step back and come back to the natural world. I went off line. Kreed’s Page went off line. I know many noticed, but for a moment in time, we needed to step back to ourselves without feeling the weight of the world. Of grief. Of memories. Of here and there and being pulled everywhere. 

I needed to notice more. Feel more. See more. Be more. Connect again. 

If Kreed taught us anything, it was to love this world that we live in and do more than just breathe a little. But take in the scent of the pine and aspen, sunflowers and daisy’s. Stand in awe at the majestic mountains before us and feel at peace with ourselves. 

It’s amazing what you notice when you listen without all the noise of the world. Kreed was connected to this world in a way most of us could only dream of. He was able to just be himself without the noise of the world. Without the weight of the world. With all the joy he could muster. I lived that life with him when he was here and what a world we created and enjoyed. The adventures we went on. The things we dreamed up to do. He taught me to dream and to be wild and free. He taught all of us. 

And I want to continue to honor his memory. His legacy. He will not be forgotten. His journey will not have been in vain. But it always means I need to remember to be connected, to filter out the noise of this world, to remember what’s important. 

“When I walk out into the world, I take no thoughts with me.  That’s not easy, but you can learn to do it.  An empty mind is hungry, so you can look at everything longer, and closer.  Don’t hum!  When you listen with empty ears, you hear more.  And this is the core of the secret:  Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

- Attention, Mary Oliver

My attention was pushed and pulled and spun around until I didn’t know which way was up. But this time away, I gave my attention to the things that needed attention. I gave myself to this world, listening in a way I had not listened before. 

And now here we are, rambling back home. This page is a home in a way. Kreed’s memory still rings strong and true here. You all watched him grow up into such an amazing young man and then watched him fight for the life he so loved. Now we talk about his life and our grief and the ways in which we grieve. The story of our grief is not a story I ever wanted to tell, but it is our life and our life with Kreed now. It is the truth, as it always has been about him.  

So here we are returning, listening in a different way, grieving still but continuing onward. And remembering our boy and honoring his life. 

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?

by Mary Oliver

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives --
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?

Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?

Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!

Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left --
fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!

To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened

in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
     but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe

I even heard a curl or two of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.

That was then, which hasn't ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

- Mary Oliver