Storytellersrus

This is my dilemma...

My struggles are broken toe nails compared to challenges facing other earthlings. I am a fifty-something, white American female, born Lutheran middle class.  

I have no stories of police brutality.  I have not spent weeks without bread.  I have not witnessed violence on my street.  I live a life of ease, compared to the majority of human beings.

Yet, I would like to share something from the heart. 

I do have a heart.  It beats. 

I did not remember to listen until one summer night, alone in a mountain cabin, I wondered where a loud drumming sound originated.  Suddenly, I realized it was my beating heart.

The pounding of this organ terrified me.  My bedtime had been consumed with night noise: cars on the highway; my husband's snores; electricity.  Sounds of my external life, but not of my inner life. 

And now, hearing it, I was afraid.  How strange, to be frightened of one's own heartbeat. 

Why?  Why was I afraid of its steady beat?  The root cause of my fear was plain to discern; I thought it might stop.

And this perhaps is what joins us all together, as human beings.  We all die.

Then the question becomes, how shall we live beneath this shadow?

Yesterday as I walked the dogs in my beloved Hundred Acre Wood, we came upon a white corgi/husky mix named Shadow.   And I thought, why must the shadow of death imply darkness? 

My heart pounded as I accompanied this white shadow along the trail.  I nearly danced. 

Perhaps I have a bit of music to share with you after all.