6 Days

"There are years that ask questions, and years that answer." 

-Zora Neale Hurston

I had lunch with my mother and sister the other day, and we considered the question: for each of us, has it been a year that asked, or that answered?

For my sister, it's been a year of answers to questions large and small, of quiet answers to important questions and resonating answers to modest questions.  My mother has focused more on her loved ones' questions and answers this year.  

And for me?

Like music, some quotes speak to the heart immediately, while others take on meaning over time.  Zora Neale Hurston's quote touched me from the first moment it sunk it, but it's another, older quote that has shown me the way I want to interpret it.

"Genius is eternal patience." Attributed to Michelangelo, that meant very little to me when I first encountered it.  I have never chipped away marble to free the shape within the stone.  It didn't seem relevant to my life.

But I have had a year of questions, and I feel the shape of another year of questions approaching.  And slowly, I have learned to feel the genius in the kind of patience it takes to let things unfold.

I'm leaving for Germany in six days.  I'm excited to make the best of my year, to be active in making it everything I would want it to be.  

But I'll also do my best to be patient, to give space for questions and for answers to shape themselves.