The poem below, The Real Life, was the very first poem I wrote when I started writing poetry again a few years ago.
Today, I want to invite you to consider:
What is the “the real life” in front of you – the beautiful, simple, available life in front of you that you can so easily overlook?
What happens if you turn your attention away from how you wish things were different, and instead, fall in love with (or at least get really interested in) what is happening in your life right now?
Can you find the adventure in it?
Can you find the grace in it?
And, toughest of all, can you surrender to what it is trying to teach you? .
Love,
Tara
The Real Life
Don’t be greedy with the universe, she said to me.
But she didn’t say it in the mean way.
She didn’t say don’t dream big, don’t want things, don’t think you deserve.
She meant: look at your life and trust it.
Notice how you have forever been given what you need.
Notice how, while you’ve been railing and ranting and wanting,
enoughness has gathered around you like stones around a fire,
How, while you’ve been making lists of what should be
wishing the set and costumes were different,
there was a whole other play happening on another stage.
The real life.
Witnessed when you hand a dollar to the woman behind the register
in the color of the orange
in the magic laugh
Never calling, just crackling, speaking in tones —
the real life
Cup your hands and ask for it.
Start looking.
Sweetness. Honey in a bowl. Nectar.
-Tara Mohr
Photo by Jenny Ellen Brown
Thanks Tara, I had read this poem before, lovely to know its origin and your introduction was beautiful. It comes when I needed the reminder and the lesson retold.
Dearest Tara,
Since discovering you on my computer, I have rediscovered me and my inner creativity. My soul has been dry for two years and now, you have helped to nourish it and encourage and teach me how to nourish myself again. Thank you is not enough. I have just last week and into this week been contemplating my “real life” doing all the things that you wrote about in your poem and yes, I am finding the grace in my life again, finding that I have that “enoughness” I love that word! I have ceased to look past and wish it could be different, because well, this is my real life and it is enough. Thank you Tara. I wish I could attend this weekend in Seattle, I am only over the mountains in Spokane WA. Do you ever think you might come this way, maybe even to Coeur D Alene, Idaho. The resort there is a beautiful place for your seminars and for inspiration right on the lake. Please consider it, you would be welcomed with wide open arms!
Angie 🙂
Tara, your poetry is LOVE. Please don’t ever stop writing.
While some poetry is lyrical and beautiful I don’t always see the meaning in it – your words are sculpted beautifully but each word, every sentence, also me nodding, and sinks into me as if it were a part of me that I’ve always known, but am rediscovering. It speaks to me in whispers and in shouts.
Thank you for sharing. Every time I see a poem from you in my inbox, I can’t wait to read it and discover.
You are absolutely spot on Tara. (I love your name by the way. It’s the name of my first born.) If we would all just stop and love our lives now, give appreciation for them now, and realize the grace in them now, we would be able to stop wishing them away. Your blog is inspiring – thanks!
Maya Angelou is my favorite writer and poet. I recently discovered you when my yoga instructor read your poem Solitude aloud right before and at the end of our relaxation class class. Now, I count you as one of my favorite writers and poets. I’m glad I found you.
“How, while you’ve been making lists of what should be
wishing the set and costumes were different,
there was a whole other play happening on another stage”
This was my favorite line. I’m such a list maker. I get stuck in my head all the time and need to be conscious that life will play itself out. I want to be an actor in the story of my life, but know that the director might have other ideas about how I should play the part.
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