You Could Make This Place Beautiful

by Maggie Smith

Maybe it’s only possible to travel very far away if one is already used to rowing.

One day, it hit me: The best things to happen to me individually were the worst things to happen to my marriage. And then, this: But the best things remain.

You carry the past with you, but you can’t go back.

Under the boat, the water that holds us is dark and full of things we can’t see.

My trigger is stress, so my treatment is perspective.

Outside, snow accumulated, enveloped, obscured, buried, softened the edges of things or crystallized around them. Time did these things, too. I was alone, but the house was full of hidden valentines.

A scar tells a story about pain, injury, healing. Years, too, are scars.

The thing about this life: If we knew nothing of what was missing, what has been removed, it would look full and beautiful.