Thursday, April 12, 2018

Tenacity


You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.  ~ André Gide


Tenacity

You are the one who gets the job done. You
don’t wait to be told what to do, you can
find the work and you can do it. This is also true: you are never
the kind to sit on the shore. You cross
to the other side even if you have to paddle across what feels like the
ocean.
You paddle until
you know where you are going. You paddle until you
see the sun coming up to light your way, until you have
a clear view, until you have the
courage
to
lose
all the burdens you carry and set your sight
on the new path that starts at the distant edge of
the
barely visible shore.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018



5 comments:

  1. Cheered by this one -- it begs to be read aloud!

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  2. I'm a very tenacious person, so I really love this.

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  3. I would very much like to meet---
    oh wait.
    I know this child already. She came up with me at the beginning of PE to make a blank book for the final version of her 26-page "Great Adventure" book. She puzzled through the multiplication problem that was determining how many folded signatures were needed.
    Go Elena! Go Mary Lee!

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  4. I'm saving this one to read to the kids next week. I love it!

    ...you paddle until
    you see the sun come up to light your way...

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  5. I like the repeated refrain, "you paddle," joining, as it does, the sometimes monotony of the muscle action with the movement of taking you, stroke by stroke, elsewhere.

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