08.08.08
The boys were running around on the soccer field and Marcy and I were wrapped in a blanket, trying to stave off the
At the top of the mountain, a lake had sprung—rainwater filling a hole created by a glacier or perhaps from years and years of falling water. While the children, skipped rocks on the shores of their own private pool, Marcy and I were on a mission of our own, finding a quiet place for our ritual to mark the day. We found a tiny crevice—somewhat protected from the breeze that was blowing the clouds around. And we gathered all the children around.
I pulled our precious cargo out of my backpack. The wishes we had made. Each of us had written or drawn our most precious wishes (no telling!) and folded them up tight. We placed each of them into the tiny space between the rocks and all leaned in tight. Marcy and I instructed the kids to think about their wishes with all of their might. And then she and I pulled out a book of matches.
Since that night I have dreamt of nothing but magic. Wild, Technicolor dreams of flying and knitting needles turned into magic wands. I have dreamed of great love of my child and of bright yellow gingerbread homes and the dear friends who live in them. I have dreamt of healers, and teachers and loved ones all doing amazing things in my little dream world. I have woken to find myself sure, as I have ever been, that Max and I are living a magical life—a life full of wonder and joy and surprises. Whether or not our wishes come true I am sure that I have been blessed by the magical day of 8.
Originally posted Sept 27, 2007
Tonight it rained. I sat in wonder and listened to the sound of the rain against my windows. I stood out on the front steps and let me feet get damp. It has been such a dry summer. The rain smelled miraculous and hopeful, the harbinger of good things. Life giving and cleansing. Just what we needed.
Nighttime in Rio, just after the storm passed
I have thought alot about my trip to Rio –the one I took two Octobers ago. We took this photo our first night there. Eddie’s friend, an ex-pat who had settled in this magical city, had taken us for a walking tour and showed us his favorite spot, a park across a lake from the hustle and bustle of this city. A rainstorm rolled in suddenly, unexpectedly, catching us on the wrong side of the park. It fell in sheets soaking us all as we ran for cover under some trees, laughing. I laughed harder than I had in months. At that moment, laughter bubbled up unexpectedly, as unstoppable as the rain. It was so absurd and silly and joyful. We were dressed to the nines for a night out on the town, with water running down our noses, with my chic outfit dripping and misshapen, my “oh-so-Rio” sandals squishing and making ridiculous noises. It was the funniest thing ever to be in Rio in the warm rain. I jumped in a puddle and lost my shoe. Pretty soon we were all laughing because I couldn’t stop laughing
I had felt so heavy and stressed when I got to Brazil. I was at the height of my financial panic and I had just started to wrap my heart around the idea that Juan was not coming back. I arrived at the airport after flying all night with only $20 American and a three day training to run in Spanish. I went to the cash machine at the airport to take out money for taxi fare and found my account was overdrawn. My cell phone was out of batteries. I had forgotten my credit card at home. I had no idea what I would do next. I went up to the money exchange counter and cashed in my $20. I hoped it would be enough to get me to the hotel where I could regroup and figure out my next move. I thought I had hit rock bottom. I felt so alone, like such a failure. To keep myself from breaking down in this strange city, I repeated a mantra “It is going to work out all right” and then I added a fervent “please” and threw in a prayer for good measure.
The taxi fare was exactly what I had in my wallet.
I got to the hotel and they told me my room was already paid for. I slept a heavy deep dreamless sleep. I woke up to find lunch. A a friend of a friend living in Sao Paolo who had come to meet me. A fully charged cell phone and a Dad on the other end able to wire some cash to get me through the week. And best of all when Eddie arrived that evening he had two airplane tickets to Rio.
Four days later I was standing in the rain in Rio, laughing as the water poured over my toes and ran down my fingers. I remember thinking that the rain washed some of my grief away that night, just let it slip right away and run into this lake, leaving me feeling a tiny bit lighter and ready to start healing.
Recently I was found.
An old dear friend reached out to me from across the wide expanse of years. We were young and dumb together, he and I. We had had many adventures–real, crazy adventures and wild emotional ones too. But that was long ago and we haven’t talked in years. We had grown up, found love, formed homes, started families. Life got busy and we drifted apart.
During the years when we were close, our relationship had been an anchor. We passed long letters back and forth over sea and land. He was in the Navy, I was teaching in Texas. Those letters kept me afloat during two very difficult years when I was far away from home, far away from love, far away from even myself. He kept me grounded, kept me reading, kept me thinking, kept me breathing. We talked about everything. We often disagreed. But no matter how spirited the debate, he saw me, really saw me for who I was, and adored me for all my imperfections. He was the first person who loved me who didn’t minimize my flaws. That is powerful love.
One New Years Eve, over 15 years ago, in a city hundreds of miles from where either of us lived he found me, sought me out to slip his arms through mine. As I lay my head on his shoulder and told him secretes, I knew that I would love him forever, that he would always be dear to me. Always.
At one point in the height of being young and dumb we had a bitter falling out. I can’t remember now any of the details or the circumstances. But I do remember the sadness, the loneliness of realizing that something profound had shifted in my life, of feeling a veil had been lifted and that I was left with life, stripped bare. Without him. I ached intensely. I was angry for I was sure that I would love him always but this did not feel like love. We stopped talking for what felt like a lifetime. The silence was so loud.
After a while though, no matter how intensely I felt the loss of him, I found that I could sit with the memories of our friendship, sit with them without anger at his betrayal. I remembered all the ways he saw me, all the ways he knew me, cherished me, even if he couldn’t understand me, even if he no longer could appreciate me. And it became clear to me that no matter how big or intense the hurt, the love I had for him was big enough–big enough to hold it. Big enough to overshadow it. Big enough to balance it. Big enough to bless it. Big enough to let it be. Because I had been seen. He saw me.
By the time his letter of apology came in the mail, by the time he found me again there was nothing but love left in my heart.
Our relationship changed after that. It would change many times. Not for the worse or even for the better. It just was, as we were, growing up. There were hurts. There was laughter. One day I sat on a park bench with him in New Orleans. I was teasing him about some girl he was dating, some girl he would later marry but the edge in my voice betrayed me. I looked down at my shoes, maybe a little embarrassed. “I just want you to be happy” I said to him. “Do you?” he challenged me in the way that only he could. “Do you really? Or do you just want me to be yours?” I was, like I often was around him,dumb struck. I just kept looking at my shoes.
But later that night I sat in a rocking chair on my friends porch in the Garden District rocking myself and looking up at the big old moon. “Happy” I whispered to the warm Louisiana wind. “Happy”. I sent my wish out for him. And for the first time I took into my heart the reality that love does not mean attachment and love often means walking away, setting boundaries, saying goodbye.
Of course it wasn’t really goodbye. Because love kept bringing us back in different ways. There were a few Sunday mornings when as I lay in bed with Juan, watching the political talks shows the phone would ring. He was watching too. Or he had news. About a clerkship. About a girl. About a death. He came to my wedding, driving through the rain from Manhattan. As he stood there with the woman who would be his wife he looked at me, and I looked at him and we both smiled–for he saw me, he saw me exactly for what I was. Happy. Messy, imperfect but happy. And it brought him joy.
But life is a busy thing. Careers, children, houses that are too big, budgets that are too small. We no longer had time for penning long letters. Sunday mornings were full of chores, and work. There is a Christmas card, maybe two and then silence. But this time the silence came so gradually I didn’t even hear it. Its been at least 5 years since our last communication–It was around the birth of his son. I sent a congratulations. He sent a thank you note. And then it was quiet.
But he found me.
Truth is he always does.
And he found me at the perfect time.
At a time when I needed to remember that love, true fearless love, is big enough to hold any hurt, any betrayal. That in the end love is always bigger. That forgiveness is but an affirmation that love is more important, mightier, stronger. He walked back into my life exactly at a time when I needed to remember that fearless love changes, morphs and may appear to retreat but never really dies. That love is not equal to attachment but that love always finds you when you need it most.
He is coming this way, my dear old friend. Passing through town this month. And he says he wants to see me. He always did see me. And when he does I will slip my arms round his waist and lay my head on his shoulder for a moment and see him too.
I am sitting in a place of radical trust right now. I am walking down a dark street and knowing I am safe. I am following a path that is lit only one or two steps ahead of me but of knowing that where it takes me is where I need to be. I am tumbling down a rabbit hole, no choice but to trust that I will land in a soft place.
The world has turned upside down and I am falling. Or am I flying? Is there any difference?
I am here in a field, this poem by TS Eliot the bed on which I lay my head. Each word a blade of soft grassy green:
A condition of complete simplicity/ (Costing not less than everything)/And all shall be well and/All manner of things shall be well…
It is what holds me. This meadow.
Is it a meadow or is it a magic carpet lifting me up, holding me above all the possibilities that could be right now. But aren’t.
I close my eyes and feel the power of this radical trust run through my veins. I feel all the places in my heart where I have been closed up and where the trust is bumping up against blockages. I know the only way to survive will be to finally allow them to break. To open, to do nothing but open.
To succumb to radical trust and know that my life will never be the same again.
This is a journey of not knowing and choosing to trust, to love any way. This is the way home to myself.
I have been trying to write for days now about the experience of turning corners, of coming back home, or starting to grow a little lighter. I have been trying but words have been escaping me, so profound and deep and yes scary this experience is, this coming home to myself. I don’t know how to write about something so big.
I stayed for days in a dark quiet place, knowing that the reason I was there was that I was facing a great big fear–the fear that is my great foe, the monster that lives in my closet and hides under my bed. I felt that if I could stay there in the dark and not hide under the covers, if I could stare her down, sit with her and maybe get to know her that maybe I would just finally get rid of her. And so I did. I sat with the fear of being abandoned. I sat with the fear of being left vulnerable. I sat and I sat. And I felt the fear flood me and fill me and rise up into my throat. I had no energy for triumph or overcoming. So I just sat.
And then, the day after the full moon, as the moon started to wane, a tiny light started to grow in my heart. A light that allowed itself to spark when a friend invited me out to a swanky party and I allowed myself to say yes. Coming up for air and being with my dear ones, allowing them to express their love in the simplest of gestures–shared scotch, stolen conversation, a late night walk–it a gave me peace. It whispered to me that I knew the way home. I did. I really did.
The light grew stronger over the weekend as I sat at the pool, flanked by two of my favorite guys. One who brought me a latte, fresh from the coffee place down the street, another who loaned me his magazine, played with my child and brought me bottled water. I noticed that though I had not left my chair for hours, all my needs were met and I felt held, cradled in the simplest manner, like a child.
It grew the night I ate two dinners. One with my child, his friend and mine. To strangers we must have looked like we were a family on a Sunday night outing but we were pieces of three families merged into one. We were family–just not the nuclear kind. We were my family. We were out but I felt at home. Later that night I ate the best steamed mussels I have had in a long time and salad from a neighborhood garden, roasted asparagus and ripe yellow tomatoes–I was not hungry for food but I was for the love with which it was prepared, the pleasure with which it was plated just for me, there spontaneously. I ate it with a side of laughter and a bit of girl talk and felt a bit brighter all the while.
Two days ago I sat at an acupuncture appointment and told my partner in healing, my beloved teacher and guide about my descent into the fear of abandonment and my humble return home. She sat quiet for a moment, contemplating what I had told her and then she asked me to think about something while she left the room. She asked me to think hard and to answer from my deepest darkest place. She asked me if it was OK to be needy.
By the time she got back tears streaked my cheeks. I wanted to say yes, for when crisis has rocked my world, I have appreciated those who sheltered me and took care of my needs. I wanted to say yes because I loved to be there for those who needed me, their neediness was not a burden but a gift to me–a gift that allowed me to be my best self.
But I couldn’t say that it was OK for me to be needy. Because in the end, I want to believe that I, and I alone am all that I need. Needing others, allowing them to love me meant that maybe they wouldn’t and I would go without. Incomplete.
I wanted to believe, I needed to believe that I could do it all on my own–that I would never need to depend on anyone again–that I would never need fear abandonment. That I could pull the covers over my head and make the monster disappear.
She looked at me with great love in her eyes but her voice was stern and strong. She essentially said this: Meg, when you give and give and do not allow those who love you to give back to you, when you take care of the needy but do not allow yourself to be needy in return, you rob your community and you set yourself out of balance. And the universe is going to kick you in the ass to set it right again. You need to receive love and if the only time you are going to allow yourself to be loved is when you are recovering from a crisis then you will be hit with crisis after crisis. Its just that simple.
The thing you need to do to heal is simple but not easy: Allow yourself to be loved.
Allow yourself to be loved.
It is so easy for me to love others, it is so easy for me to see the beauty that they bring to the world and to appreciate it for the rough, cranky and imperfect gift it is but frankly if I am completely honest I have a lot of doubts about whether they will love me in return. Not because I don’t see myself as loveable but because, perhaps I doubt whether I can count on them to rise to the occasion of loving me completely.
I trust myself to love them, but I do not trust them to love me back. I dance around the doubts, while I make excuses for my dear ones–all the reasons why love, fearless true love is hard. I tell myself all the reasons why I shouldn’t expect it while I prepare myself for disappointment. I tell myself how hard it is for them to see me completely. I compensate in my mind and in my heart for all the ways I anticipate that they will let me down.
I really sell my dear ones short.
And yet, every time I need them so many of them rise, rise, rise to the occasion. Not all of them mind you, but the good ones. The ones I call tribe. They always do in the smallest and simplest of ways. A shared drink, a sweet song, a movie ticket, a tea, painting my toenails, making me a salad, making my bed, bringing me a latte, loaning me a book, telling me a joke, sending me an email, a phone call, a secret whispered message while lighting a candle for me. There are the big ways too–the ways so big, and wide and open. They rise, they always rise.
And if I am honest, they rise everyday whether I need them or not. And maybe the one who fails to see completely is me. Maybe it is I who fails to see them and how they would cradle me if only, if only I let them.
And it is this, this simply complex and impossibly easy thing, that is blocking me.
As we talked, as I struggled to wrap my head and heart around her words, as I struggled to understand how I failed my loved ones by not allowing them to love, the most amazing thing happened.
Over her shoulder a rainbow appeared. It stretched fully across the horizon and filled the picture window. I stopped her mid sentence and told her to turn around. We both walked to the window, with mouths agape and gazed at the rainbow. And then, we witnessed a second rainbow hover over the first. It was a miracle, nothing I had ever seen. It was brilliant. It was perfect.
That pair of rainbows stayed with us through the rest of my appointment. As she took my pulses and inserted needles. As I lay on the table, I gazed out the window at its brillance. It was a message, a punctuation mark, a song, a miracle. It said YES. It said WHAT SHE SAID. It said TRUST. It said OK, DAMN IT IF YOU NEED A SIGN HERE IT IS.
As I drove home I was sure that I was changed forever. And in some ways I suppose I am. But in other ways I see how this fear is sticking with me still, how stubborn I am. How hard it is to let go of fear. How this journey does not end at the rainbow, but how the rainbow is just the beginning.
Tonight, the one who loves my child so dearly got another lecture from me about how he needs to let me know if its getting to be too much, this adoration, this affection, this responsibility. He looked at me with patience but I could see he was tired of this conversation and I saw in his weary face how I was selling him short again. How I was doubting how much he could love. How I failed to see him with his big heart for what it was–big and wide open. How scared I was that his love for Max would change. How scared I was that if we asked too much of him, his love for us would change.
And I asked myself, can I trust my dear ones to love us completely? Can I trust them to see me and still stay? Can I leap unafraid into their arms? Can I really do that?
And I thought about the phrase, FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY. And I wondered if I could? Really. What would it cost? Everything and nothing and everything again.
I don’t know how to end this post. Because I don’t know how to write about coming home. It don’t know how to write about something that feels so big and scary and beautiful and bright. I don’t know how to end something that speaks only about beginnings.
So I will just begin again. And begin again. And again.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always —A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be wellWhen the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.-TS Eliot, The Four Quartets
Late last night, my stomach full of yummy, yeasty homemade pizza, I lay down my head to sleep. Sleep was not coming though and so I was able to indulge (thanks to the magic of cheap phone cards) in a three hour marathon conversation with my dear friend Jen down under.
It amazes me, even now, that she and I found each other. We live literally half a world away from each other but our hearts beat at the same frequency. I can’t quite figure out how the universe matched us up, but in some ways, it almost doesn’t matter how. The fact that we are connected now is all that really is important.
Getting off the phone with Jenni I was drunk on the notion of possibility.
But I had called her in an impossibly bad mood. My last several weeks have been about meeting obstacle after obstacle–many of them homemade by yours truly–but obstacles none the less. I feel bruised and battered from the onslaught of “no good news”. I am a little bird flying into windows I didn’t imagine were there. My nose is sore from pressing itself up against the glass in so many of my little life venues.
The message I have been getting from the universe is this: Wait. Sit. No. And I have been angry. I want to experience: Now. Go. Yes.
These last couple of weeks I have started to sullenly accept the wait, sit, no. I am adjusting to this season, to this reality, to this place I am. This quieter place. This space of not now. But perhaps too much. Because last night I realized that I had given up on Now. Go. Yes. I had moved into a grieving spot for it.
Letting go of the need to move forward feels healthy to me. Closing myself off to the possibility of moving forward does not. Its such a fine, practically invisible line, but once I cross it I know it. It is the the border between peace and despair.
My friend Jenni, she knows about this line too and together we talked about the challenge of staying grounded in reality while still staying open the possibility that reality is going to shift and change. Indeed, it always does. When reality is not so rosy, it is easy to only consider the negative possibilities. We whisper to ourselves instructions to come to terms with the possibility that we might not get well, might not accomplish our goal, might not have a fairy tale ending, might not reach the finish line. But we feel so committed to helping our brains consider the negative that we refuse to give equal due to the other possibilities–we might get healthy, we might accomplish it and more, we might have the ending we hoped for or something better, we might reach the finish line and keep on moving.
I asked Jenni why we do this to ourselves? Why do we only consider the negative? Is it that we don’t want to be disappointed when the negative possibility comes true? But really will we be any less disappointed when the time comes? And by only considering that negative possibility have we actually taken a step to make sure that it is the only one that will come true? In an effort to prepare our hearts for the worst, do we actually start to ensure that the worst is what we will face?
Somehow keeping open to all possibilities seems to be the lesson of my week. To recognize that every moment, in fact every breath provides an opportunity for a new possibility to unfold. To learn to stay in whatever this moment brings knowing that the next brings a brand new world.
I woke this morning to the sound of the rain through the trees and the birds trying to raise the sun with their song.
The first thought that crossed my mind was “When is the last time that has happened?” Indeed it seemed as though these two morning sounds, both soothing in their own right, often don’t go together. Its either the birds OR the rain.
Its so easy to get stuck in either/or. Indeed it is often a logical place to be. Being a grown-up means making choices. Either I stay up late catching up on the blogs or I slip off to bed early to catch up on my sleep. Either I go to the meeting or I stay in my office and finish the assignment that is due at the end of the day. Either I dig through the fridge and find something to make for dinner or I give up and take Max out to his favorite haunt to eat.
Indeed, we are told that we need to teach our children about choices, and making good ones to prepare them to grow up. When Max howls about not wanting to bathe, I pull out the two words “either or”. Either you can take a bubble bath or you can take a mist shower…but you need to get clean. Once when I put those two choices before him he looked at me intrigued…”Can I do both? Can I make a bubble bath and run the mist shower at the same time?”
Either/or…They are powerful words and they are often necessary. They help us frame the thousands of choices we need to make each day…Help us sort out consequences and act rightly. “Either I splurge and buy that fancy coffee on the way to the office or I bring in milk and make the best of the stinky work coffee but save $3 I desperately need for something else.” “Either I tell that consultant what I think of his childish behavior or I wait until I am less angry and can respond with maturity.”
But this morning it dawned on me that sometimes, just sometimes, either/or is nothing more than a habit. We set ourselves up into a series of false choices because we are so used to having to choose. We rush to the choice, not waiting to see if a third way emerges, a possibility that makes the choice unnecessary.
This morning the birds and the rain whispered a little message to me. See the third way where you can. Keep eyes open to the possibility. Sometimes there is no choice to be made. Sometimes the rain and the birds actually both can sing.
Today is the start of a magical weekend. It is a weekend that already is brimming with love and community and kindness.
It is the start of the Bloggers for Jeni Auction. Please click over here to view some of the amazing objects in the store. There are beautiful prints offered by some talented Shutter Sisters. There are adorable baby clothes, a necklace made by this superhero, beautiful hand carved wooden bowls, products to pamper oneself. There is one special offering for a comfy day with one of my favorite authors Karen Maezen Miller. The auction will be up and running through Thursday May 1.
All of the money raised will go to support our dear friend Jennifer Ballantyne, a courageous cancer warrior and her 6 year old son Jack. Money will be used to help Jen get access to care not covered by insurance as well as provide a trust for little Jack, a charming boy who sings love songs to his mother each night.
Here are some things you can do to help spread the word and help us create some miracles for Jen and Jack:
1) Go over to the auction, find something special and bid.
2) Let friends and family know about the auction.
3) If you blog, please post about the auction and include a link to it.
Wishing you a weekend full of miracles and magic.
Today I had my “quarterly breakdown”. It happens about once every three or four months. Usually on a Sunday. It often starts with the house (oh the house!–the toys everywhere!) or my room (Why can’t he sleep in his own room? And why has he insisted on bringing in every single stuffed animal and 35 books and crackers into my bed) or maybe its the paperwork piled up on my desk (when did THAT bill come in? For HOW much?). Often it happens when I haven’t eaten a real meal in 24 hours, usually I am sick, and I am often wearing the same clothes I have worn for 48 hours. Should be able to predict them by now, but I still don’t.
It starts with the house, or the chores or the details of life and spirals down “Why doesn’t my child listen to me?” and the “What is wrong with me as a parent?” and then “What don’t I feel any control?” and then “How can I be such a fool?” and then “AAAAAAH”. I usually stop the downward spiral at AAAAAH. I have ridden that spiral all the way down to the bottom before and I am wise to calmly step off the spinning escalator at this particular basement. Thirty eight years has to teach you something.
My downward spiral was also fortunately broken by two phone calls that came in within 45 minutes of each other. The first one from Jackie. After a 5 minute update on the status of the breakdown she delivered surprising good news on a project we are working on together. Then, my mood moving up half a floor from AAAAAH, I stomped around the house all the while scrubbing my bedroom clean until Odette came into my room with the phone. “Its for you–Its Jen” she said. Ohhhh…. the lovely Jen Lemen. Within 5 minutes of chatting with Jen I was laughing at myself, laughing at her and laughing at the aburdity of my little tantrum. The reason she too was calling was to give more great news on yet another project we are working together. I couldn’t help but feel that the universe was trying to tell me something. Great news and surprises abound–get rid of that grumpy old, beat down, bad mood now and pay attention.
There is a theme that is playing out in my life right now. We talk about it over here almost every day. I find myself waking up each morning, completely curious. Realizing that I have no idea what will happen as the day unfold but certain of the fact that somehow somewhere I will be completely and utterly surprised and amazed.
I wasn’t planning on posting tonight but after Max had finally gone to sleep Jackie called me and asked if I could join her for a movie. Eric had to work. Odette said she would stay with Max and off I went to her house, my knitting in hand. We watched Dan In Real Life. Oh what a sweet film. A story about everything unfolding messily but beautifully exactly as it should. Apparently the universe believes that I really need it spelled out for me and so it is writing this lesson on every stone in my path. Along with the story Jackie and I fell ourselves falling deeply in love with the soundtrack and the singer-songwriter-composer who wrote the score. And this song. This song which will be my anthem for the week.
There is a theme that is repeating itself over and over again in my life. It is a theme of magic, of things happening exactly at the right time and the right place. This lifetime, I am relearning about faith. And I feel like right now, at this very point, I am getting a crash course in it.
When I was a child, I had no problems with faith. I trusted blindly. I feared nothing.
But then, unfortunately I learned to worry. To doubt. I can’t say exactly when it started but I know by the time I was deep into my teens I knew exactly what lack of faith meant. I knew how to predict (and expect) every worst case scenario. I became an expert in disbelief . I actually remember counseling myself to plan for it all to fall apart so that I would be pleasantly surprised if it didn’t.
I suppose it was a way to try and gain a sense of control on this messy roller coaster we call life. I really needed to believe that I was in charge. That I could control what would happen to me on a daily basis. I can say that I almost earned a masters degree in seeking control. Ask my ex-husband. Ask my boss. Ask anyone who had to work on a project with me. I came armed with to-do lists and workplans and plan b, c, and d. Skeptism was my shield. I really believe that it would all fall to crap right without my carefully thought through plans. Needless to say, I put alot of pressure on myself to make sure those plans were right. And interestingly enough, the more plans I made, the more complicated and fierce, the less I trusted that they were, in fact, going to get me where I needed to go. It was an endless cycle of stress and fear.
When my marriage started to fall apart, so too did my illusions that I actually was going to be able to control exactly what happens to me. I struggled for a long time with that lack of control. I couldn’t make Juan come home. I couldn’t make Max happy. I couldn’t stop the tears, the hurt, the disappointment.
But right smack dab in the middle of that shit, something beautiful took root.
As my illusions of control slipped away, the only thing I could do was put one foot in front of the other and breathe and trust that if I did that I would keep moving forward and that I would live.
It was a slowly grasped lesson, this learning to trust thing. But like a rock which I finally have been able to nudge down a slope, I feel it accelerating at a rapid rate in my life. The more I trust that I am being held by someone greater, the more I trust my inner wisdom and own intuition, the more I give up needing to control and instead decide to just go with the flow, the more abundance and joy flows into my life, and the easier and freer I feel.
It happens in big ways, ways I have yet to really even begin to write about, but it happens in small ways too.
Like tonight. My darling housemate, a trained chef who cooks like a madwoman, had carefully planned and cooked a feast for friends who eat with us each Tuesday. But work meetings and traffic jams and college interviews kept them from our door. We sat in our house at 6pm with food to feed an army and just our little weary band. It could have been cause for dismay and cursing at the traffic and work Gods. But she and I both feel that things happen for reasons and really that the food would not go to waste. The cancellation was not a cause for disappointment but an opportunity to make magic happen elsewhere. We got on the phone and started calling around. Our very first phone call was to a friend who had dinner guests coming supposedly with food. But they were not yet there and the children were hungry. “Come” they said, “bring your food. We will make a party for them when they get here we will all eat like kings”. And so we did. Sure enough when their friends arrived they had been held up and did not have much with them. A ready made dinner supplemented with the little they could bring was nothing short of a miracle. A tiny everyday miracle–the kind where it seems that things unfold exactly as they should.
I am reminded today as I go about my day, how life just does seem to fall into place. Flowers blossom without our efforts. When we relax into ourselves, we blossom too. Love and joy bubble up, even when we didn’t try to make it happen. Opportunities cross our paths that change our lives almost magically. Sometimes growth, beauty all the good stuff–it happens despite ourselves. We learn, we grow, we fall in love and end up in beautiful places.
