You Can't Have It All, But.........

You can’t have it all, said everyone, all my life,
all the time, and I never did. But I had teen years
full of dreams and deep longing, the smell of
sweet pea and honeysuckle and peonies
on warm summer evenings; shy teen kisses
in City Park, a smiling brown-eyed boy
picking a blossom off a tree, saying
"Poor man’s orchid” as he handed it to me.

You can’t have it all, but I had
a cottage full of noisy, laughing children,
a big garden, a sprinkler going chook-chook-chook
on summer mornings. I had hikes up Knox Mountain,
flying kites on its slopes, the lake stretching, blue
and shining, into the distance, ringed by what I called,
in my babyhood, “the Big Blue Hills.”

“What do you want? Jam on it?” my mother would
laugh, when my wants exceeded the needs
of our impoverished household.
Yes, I wanted jam; I was always hungry, back then,
which is why I find it so hard to be hungry now.

“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride,”
smiled my Grandma, who was prone
to inscrutable wisdom,
and my life’s greatest teacher.
I pictured the beggars, their torn clothes
turned to velvet, on horses with thick manes,
tossing their heads imperiously.
And there would be castles for them, too,
who had never had homes.

There was a sea monster who lived in the depths
of the lake of my childhood. Some saw Ogopogo,
though I never did. I remember its statue,
and how my son climbed on it when he was eight
while I took photos. His eyes were innocent then,
of the suffering that lay ahead
when he turned seventeen.
Mine were unaware, too,
that motherhood grows more painful
as one’s children age; I am glad
I did not know, so our laughter rang out often
in that small house we so soon outgrew
that was our only home.

You can’t have it all, they say, over and over.
But I had this: a life, children, song, laughter,

poems, friends, the beauty of blue skies
and nature, to keep my heart dreaming.

And it is enough, and more than enough,
for me.

Day Twenty-Three of Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner