Ecstasy

I have no shortage of ecstasy in my life and yesterday as I hobbled my way through Harvard Square, picking my steps carefully I was drenched with a feeling of ecstatic thankfulness for all that is good in my life. I had hurt my leg somehow ... still not sure how. I was having trouble walking. I looked like some woman in a navy suit and navy heels with a bum leg. But I was a queen. I was walking in queenly honor and majesty feeling enormous pleasure and gratitude to all in my life who bring me so much joy. The hobbled leg was a great treat. Slowed me down and let me enjoy the wild weather, a big pile of grey storm clouds, a sunny battle of summer rain and sunshine and light shards slicing clouds.

I was thanking brick by brick as I walked in pain -- my right knee really hurting -- but I was ecstatially thanking generations of people who had preserved the lovely square. I was blessed in a 1000 ways to see the passers-by ... the grinning mom with her son in yellow rain slicker with sticky candy on the sleeve and their laughter -- reminding me of the blessing of my son. The zany haired students, so alive with the love of learning new things and I thanked God again for all the things I'm learning and blessed all the people who are teaching me those lessons. I snaked my way along that alley from Brattle to the Charles Hotel, blessed Crate & Barrel for sunny summer things in the big plate glass windows, blessed the Harvest and all the folks who've bought me wonderful meals there, blessed the bricks for still being there and sharing their backs with me right then and there in 2003 and maybe with Thoreau once, doing a day in town away from Walden and maybe Dickensen, the brush of her satin-edged hoop skirted gown, brushing the icy ground in a cold season.

I had been at a conference at Harvard Law School, so blessed every one there, thanking them for all the fascinating stuff I was hearing about, blessed all the many lawyers for all the hours they grappled with words, more than 300 years of it practically and all their rigor and righteousness and longing for something called justice. And I was filled with joy at it all, glowing and not being snuffed out by the precipitation that kept trying to rain on my slow parade.