There are kinds of human problems which really do seem, as our tidy expressions would have it, to 'come to a head' and 'demand to be dealt with.' But there are also problems, often just as serious, which come to nothing that we can recognize or simply deal with. Some long-lived, insidious problems simply slip us off to one side of ourselves. Some gently rob us of just enough energy or faith so that days which once took place on a horizontal plane become an endless series of uphill slogs. And some--like high water working year after year at the roots of a riverside tree--quietly undercut our trust or our hope, our sense of place, or of humor, our ability to empathize, or to feel enthused, and we don't sense impending danger, we don't feel the damage at all, till one day, to our amazement, we find ourselves crashing to the ground.
That's what I read last night, just before I turned off the overhead light, padded to the bathroom, took my contacts out, and came back into the living room. I sat in the relative dark with only the lights from my 3-foot tree for company. I thought about the parts of my life that have robbed--or might be robbing--me of energy or faith, and those that give it, renew it.
This book, and all the reasons that I have read it and reread it, are necessary to my life.
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