“You left me, sweet, two legacies,– / A legacy of love / A Heavenly Father would content, / Had He the offer of;
“You left me boundaries of pain / Capacious as the sea, / Between eternity and time, / Your consciousness and me.” –Emily Dickinson from Collected Poems Of Emily Dickinson, published in 1983 by Chatham River Press, a division of Arlington House, Inc.
Outside the building where our studios are located, there is a moving display of stick-people walking. You often see pedestrians in sync with the stick-figures in the electronic display. More often than not, they fall out of sync when they pay close attention to what’s going on beside them in the display. A sidewalk is what threads a neighborhood together. We learned about boundaries starting with the sidewalk in front of our home, and how far we were allowed to travel along it. In the August 1990 issue of Glamour magazine’s Private Time column was this: “A stoop bridges the boundary between home and the outside world. You’re on your own turf, but with a front-row seat to the drama of the street, or the landscape around you. You’re out-of-doors, but close to the comforts of home.”
From the vantage point of your stoop, veranda or front porch, you can learn a lot about boundaries and also about a sidewalk.
This is called Choices–Author Unknown. It was posted on the Internet sometime back at a site that once featured inspirational writing. If you ever do find out who wrote this, please let me know so that I can give credit where credit is due. “Portia Nelson reports that she has written her autobiography in just five short chapters. It goes like this.
“Chapter One. I walk down the street. There’s a hole in the sidewalk. It is a very deep hole. I fall in. I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.
“Chapter Two. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in–again. I can’t believe I’m in the same place, but it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out.
“Chapter Three. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it there. I still fall in. It’s a habit, but my eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.
“Chapter Four. I walk down the same street. There’s a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.
“Chapter Five. I walk down another street.
“What a marvelous progression from a helpless victim of life, to a victim of self, to taking responsibility, to self discipline, to making better choices.” I am not sure about the real sentence structure of this writing or the grammar since it was posted by an anonymous writer.
Have you heard of this term before? It was mentioned in an item from The Baltimore Sun. “Laptopia: A virtual country populated by industrious nomads. [S]tudents, writers, former desk jockeys, all wielding laptops, have taken the workplace–and their cyber playgrounds–with them. The explosive growth of WiFi, short for wireless fidelity, is largely propelling this sociological change. With wireless access to the Internet available in thousands of coffeehouses, airports, libraries, restaurants and other ‘hot spots,’ laptop users worldwide have erased the boundaries that have traditionally separated the spaces in which they live, work and socialize.”–The Baltimore Sun and featured in the Thursday April 29th, 2004 issue of The Globe and Mail’s Social Studies column. I often wonder where you access this blog. I have heard from people who read it in Internet cafes, at home and at work. The Internet has certainly erased boundaries all over the world.
Breaking down walls, that get erected slowly over time, is something you will want to keep struggling away at, so that they don’t grow so tall that they eventually cut you off completely from one another.
This was another writing posted on a website that featured inspirational writing. Again, it is “Author Unknown.” It is called Portrait Of A Friend. “I can’t give solutions to all life’s problems, doubts or fears. But I can listen to you, and together we will search for the answer. / I can’t change your past with all its heartache and pain, or the future with its untold stories. But I can be there now when you need me to care. / I can’t keep your feet from stumbling. I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall. / Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine. Yet I can share in your laughter. / Your decisions in life are not mine to make nor to judge. I can only support you, encourage you, and help you when you ask. / I can’t prevent you from falling away from friendship, from your values, from me. I can only pray for you, talk to you, and wait for you. / I can’t give you boundaries which I have determined for you. But I can give you the room to change, the room to grow, room to be yourself. / I can’t keep your heart from breaking or hurting. But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces and put them back in place. / I can’t tell you who you are. I can only love you, and be your friend.” –Author Unknown.
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Don Jackson
