Dear Apples,

When so much is in a state of up-in-the-air uncertainty, what is it that roots you?  It seems this life of constant motion requires a perpetual diving, downward and deeper to the discovery of beginnings.  I can look ahead with expectation and anticipation, but first I gather up the core parts, so that I don’t unravel as I go.  Do you understand?

There are two excepts I’ve read that talk about it; the first from William Butler Yeats and the second from Adrienne Rich:

“Now that my ladder’s gone
I must lie down where all the ladders begin
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart”

and

“..I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent…”

I think that “something more permanent” is what’s found in the rag and bone shop of the heart, and it is home. Home can be carried around inside; it must be. It is comprised of the small anchors set up in new places: the rituals, routines, spaces, images, scents and sounds. It is also the intangible relation to our life-sources; of family, friends, lovers, children, mentors and the natural world. I think all of life is this kind of conversation with the world around us and the upkeep of the relational exchange.