Let us always be kind in this world

"The deepest secrets in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world, and why not finally carry that secret out with our bodies into the living rooms and porches, backyards and grocery stores? Let the whole thing flower: the person, the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world."

So writes Nathalie Goldberg in her book: Writing Down the Bones, 2005, Shambala Publications, Massachusetts.

It got me thinking. I had just crawled out from underneath the pages of the "Daily Grime" posing as a newspaper. I always feel like I need a bath after reading the reports. The crime, the corruption, the lack of basic services, the greed, the failures of governance and delivery seem to float off the paper and settle on my skin as if I had rubbed it in the newsprint. I leave the reading of it feeling heavy and sad. How do I find a way to always be kind in this world?

How? I sat down and started writing. I vented my anger, my rage and disgust. How am I to always be kind in this world? Please tell me? I screamed at the page. And scratched and scraped words together that shocked me. But that message kept on knocking me back: "And lets us always be kind in this world". I got up and wrote some more. Howling at this world, screeching my dismay, tearing at the page until it wept under my pen. And still it whispered in my head and held my heart.

I have to find a way to always be kind in this world. I am not sure how. For now I will keep on writing, allowing the voice to be. Maybe it will stay sleeping softly somewhere inside, to awaken when I want to snarl at some ugliness, and stretch and yawn and sigh those words into my lungs again: "And let us always be kind in this world."