The strong of sorrow may only be used extensively if one vows to play on them at some later point and in their particular key all of the joyousness that accumulates behind everything that is difficult, painful, and that we had to suffer, and without which the voices are not complete.*
(Rainer Maria Rilke)

My grandmother was fond of repeating the proverb: “Where there’s a will there’s a way.” She’d say it to encourage us to try.  I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated its power until now.**
(Bernadette Jiwa)

We’re on holiday, but some of the things we had hoped to do, we can’t because we’re not supposed to travel outside of our health board areas at the present moment. Of course, plenty of people will, which compounds our sorrows.

Rainer Maria Rilke reminds me, though, that if I want to play the sorrowful tune, I must also be prepared the joyful ones, too.

And even now, in the midst of this reality, there is imagination and the possibilities this will. Thank you to Wallace Stevens for reminding me of this, the way, if we have the will:

It is not only that the imagination adheres to reality, but also, tat reality adheres to imagination and that interdependence is essential.^

(*From Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life.)
(**From Bernadette aiwa’s The Story of Telling blog: The Will and the Way.)
(^From Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel.)