Casual Fridays: The universe waits

Hi guys. It's Britt. Sometimes I worry that the best days of my life are behind me. Of course I know that's not true, not really. Things really are getting better, and I like that as I grow older I have more and more of a sense of who I am. 

Still, I used to feel absolutely invincible. As time passes and all the little rejections and mis-steps pile up, it's easy to loose sight of the bigger picture. 

When I was twenty-two and about to start traveling for the first time, a professor friend of mine sent me this message. I want to share it today. (Hope you don't mind, John, wherever you are!)

Dear Brittany,
 
Here's a poem for you, written by Jorge Luis Borges in his old age.  He
was going blind, but was trying to teach himself Anglo-Saxon so he could
read Beowulf in the original.
 
 POEM WRITTEN IN A COPY OF BEOWULF
 
 At various times I have asked myself what reasons
 Moved me to study, while my night came down,
 Without particular help of satisfaction,
 The language of the blunt-tongued Anglo-Saxons.
 Used up by the years my memory
 Loses its grip on words that I have vainly
 Repeated and repeated.  My life in the same way
 Weaves and unweaves its weary history.
 
 Then I tell myself:  it must be that the soul
 Has some secret sufficient way of knowing
 That it is immortal, that its vast encompassing
 Circle can take in all, can accomplish all.
 Beyond my anxiety and beyond this writing
 The universe waits, inexhaustible, inviting.
 
Wishing you a heroic voyage,
 
John
 

Have a heroic weekend, story-makers. See you back here on Monday. 

Britt