Returning

I began with the wish to write about peace. I find myself returning to ordinary acts: making a promise clear, hearing a refusal, teaching what I know, correcting what I have misunderstood.

I will not always do these things well. I would like to live among people who can tell me when I fail, and within arrangements that make it possible to answer them without first defending everything I have ever been.

That is something I can help build. I can leave room at a table, make a limit known, or place a useful tool in another person’s hands. I can protect a disagreement from becoming an injury. When I cannot mend a relationship, I can try to leave it without adding cruelty.

I hope these pages remain open to the same examination they ask of other things. Keep what helps. Question what does not. Carry a better thought beyond them.