written by. . . ?

 

who writes us?

I like who I am,

though it challenges me to have a psyche

only sort of in conscious control,

a psyche easily swayed by emotions:

the laugh and the tear,

confidence and despair,

each an easy step from the moment,

each but a nudge from the other,

the man in me always wants to tough it out,

to control, to act upon the world,

make myself responsible, indispensable, for any move forward,

the breaking through to new lands,

the assertion of will upon the world,

those places within which I feel myself important, and of worth,

other parts of me want to connect with

and to honor others, too,

those who share the world we both love,

those who see a larger picture,

one in which the move forward

should be of a collective wisdom,

my ego helpful, but not determinative,

this part of me seeks to expands who I am

to be also who you are,

our older granddaughter talked of characters in books

and of how the female characters, who are written by a woman,

are often fuller as people than many women characters written by a man,

true to who they are, and also true to who they can be,

if released into what is possible and right,

my mother wrote much of who I am,

I hope to choose and embrace both who she was

and also the lonely, loving gifts of who my father was,

of how he worked hard to do his best 

and to make family and world better,

I want to honor that drive to act, to build,

to forge a path upon the world

that leads to a better place,

I want to also connect with partners

who have a vision of what can be,

and the energy to work to make it so,

in the stories I hope to live, and to have lived,

I want to use both the drive to do,

and the gift to honor how collective any step forward must be

in a better world that works hard to balance individual and group,

the parochial and the universal,

within which all the pieces of one's self

can come to consensus and into resolution,

I hope enough of us can be full characters

so that we can find ourselves together

and step into new lands sure enough 

of the totality of who we are

to create an improved world

that honors the best within us.

by Henry H. Walker

March 18, ‘26