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Love Your Fate

4/24/2020

At the end of the day,
The Stoics got it right.
Amor fati.
Love your fate.
Don’t just bear it or accept it.
Embrace it. Savor it like a fine wine.
Anything that burns in the fire
Becomes fuel for the fire.
Use the pain and loss to burnish your soul.

Memento morí
Remember that one day
We will all be dust and ashes.
Stripped of power and money and worldly possessions,
You will be naked and alone
Inside your urn or coffin.
Like all the princes and paupers
Who came before you.
Forgotten in the sands of time.

I’ve come to realize only now
That Sisyphus, the man condemned to roll a boulder up a mountain for all eternity
Was not the starring player in some ancient tragedy.
Keenly focused on the present, not the future or the past,
He was happy because the gods gave him punishment
And he found a way to turn it into meaning.

Amor fati
Memento mori.
Embrace your fate.
Live every day as if it were your last
Love the fire that refines your soul.

Rosalind Resnick
April 23, 2020

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My yellow bathroom

4/17/2020

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Alone in my house,
On a day that could have been my last,
A day of sickness and of death,
Of bodies piling up around the world on CNN,
A day that I, too, could have woken up feverish
And coughing and barely breathing,
I decided that now might be as good a time as any
To paint my bathroom yellow.

Now I realize that, for others,
That day might have been better spent in prayer
Or solemn reflection of sins yet unrepented,
A day of singing songs of hope from balconies
Or clapping for doctors and nurses or beating drums,
But I, instead, alone at home,
Chose to spend that precious day that could have been my last,
Painting my bathroom yellow.

With no higher purpose than to find some paint, a roller and a brush,
I went downstairs and found a can half full of paint
The color of the Sun drawn by a Crayola crayon.
I brought the can upstairs, dipped in my brush and began to stroke the wall with color.
And, when I did, the dread of death and loneliness began to melt away
Until the whole room began to blaze with golden fervor.
When I was done, I realized that the day was gone
And it was night and I had spent the day,
That precious day that could have been my last,
Free of fear and full of love,
Painting my bathroom yellow.

Rosalind Resnick
April 16, 2020

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Love Your Fate

My yellow bathroom

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