Wild Geese etc...

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

--Mary Oliver, Dream Work

Read this awesome post by Joanne Goddard over at Cup of Jo, and male or female, try not to be moved.

I too have had my own struggles with anxiety and even depression. There aren't many of us who haven't. There are, however, far too many of us who don't want to talk about it. It's terribly heinous stuff, like water finding the cracks in a dam, and if you're unlucky enough to stumble headlong into it, you very likely won't recognize it until you trip on back out. It's serious business made even more serious if someone can find the strength and perspective to talk about it. Joanna's post is it's own kind of beautiful. Read it, but if you're a Mom you might want to reach for a tissue first...Dads too. The woman you love may just have a similar story but you've never heard it.

I hear it almost every single day, and I'm convinced that the deepest, darkest foggiest places on this planet are inside ourselves.

Be good tonight folks. Take care of yourself. Say what's on your mind. Talk to someone...try to listen. Go to sleep knowing that you're not the only one. There's lots of us...male, female, mothers, fathers...friends. Be good, stay cool. Mucho affection...which means "lots" in Mexican if you're keeping score at home.