bear with me.

last night i started reading a book of barbara kingsolver's essays.

let me just say, i adore barbara kingsolver. she makes me swoon; i love her work upside down and sideways. she is also a fine human being.

this essay was about the anguish she felt just after 9-11, and her thoughts about the world and our connective tissue that makes us feel things deeply. one anecdote was about a couple in the mountainous region of iran, who worked all day and left their 17-month old with a family member. one day they returned and found that their son was missing. they looked everywhere. the whole tribe looked everywhere, through every tent, every nook, every bit that could hold a tiny, wandering child.

he could not be found.

despondent, the family went to bed, but the father awoke early in the morning to go look in the nearby mountains. some village men went with him, none with high hopes. there were caves in the mountains, but everyone was sure that this small toddler could not have wandered that far. he had just learned to walk a few months before. how could this be possible?

still, the men searched. and they came to a cave where they heard a child crying. they walked into the darkness. and they smelled bear.

and as their eyes adjusted to the dark they saw a huge mama bear, laying down on the floor of her den, cradling the human child next to her.

the child had been hungry, and the mama bear had nursed him. he had been cold and she had given him warmth. he was lost and she gave him shelter.

the story ended there, with barbara kingsolver not sure what happened next. she wanted to believe, as i did, that the bear simply released the child to the humans and they ducked back out of the cave, leaving acorns behind as an offering of gratitude.

this is what i want to believe, with all of my soul.

as i was reading this, i started crying. i had tears streaming down my face, over my nose, on my pillow. i could not stop. the article kept moving forward, about finding our humanity among the disastrous moments in our history. she touched on the fact that our earth is sick, our hearts are sick. that all we hear about is pain. but then she also spoke of the shared living that we all do; the fact that the mother and father in iran walked home from a day's work, and probably spoke about dinner. or joked together. or talked about their son. that a nomadic family in faraway iran holds the same conversations that i do, and finds the same joy that i do, and has the same beating heart that i have within me.

it was all too much for me.

i don't know where i am right now, except to say that this is maybe what a mid-life-type crisis feels like, except i don't want to do anything drastic like buy a fancy car or get implants.

i want to save the world.

i cried and cried last night, thinking about the fact that my life, the one i had planned for myself, is unraveling in front of me. it is mine, and i love it so much, but i can't deny that i haven't fulfilled my promise to myself. i had so many plans and thoughts and dreams about making this world a better place, about being special.

instead i am a normal 41-year old woman, with a husband and two children, living sometimes a precarious financial existence but sheltered, fed, loved and loved more. i am among the lucky, blessed, charmed ones. i live in a democracy, with promise and hope and freedom.

and what have i done?

this breakdown also happened to coincide with me watching this week's episode of "downton abbey", in which a woman dies after a misdiagnosis in childbirth. even though it is a soap opera of glorious proportions, i still sobbed, and rightfully so.

then i read barbara kingsolver.

this also happened to coincide with me listening to an interview with lena dunham yesterday, as well. she is 26 years old, and she is helping to re-establish the view of women in television. she has a voice, a gift, and i am lucky that my daughter will be coming of age when she is present and accessible.

i thought about sending her an email (or more appropriately a tweet, right, heather?) and saying thank you, but i am a forty-something woman. i am not her demographic. those characters on "girls" should not speak to me in such a powerful way.

fuck, i think i'm cracking up a bit here.

all of this is to say that i am deep within tonight. i can't help but feel that my heart is literally outside my body; that it is beating bright and shiny like ET's, and hoping that somehow i am a part of this place. that i still have things to do and changes to make and life to live that will make things better.

that i can do something, and be good to this earth, and to all of the creatures who live here with me. that i mean something.

that i can find those little miracles, those bear-baby miracles, and hold tight to them when i sink into despair at the sadness of what we do to each other. that i can see that love is present in everything i look at. that i can feel the blessedness of my own existence and understand that within that is a prayer to the world.

this is my life, my little life. it is all i have to give. i only hope it is enough.