One more thing tonight--

I've decided to change the title of this blog. "...and the punchline is I always swim upstream" was so appropriate for many years, but I've reached a different place in how I face the stream, so to speak. I admire the tenacity and imagery of doggedly going against the stream, but it's just not where I'm at anymore.

"Singing to the Blackbird" comes from my favorite Beatles song of all time, and it's a good embodiment of how I feel in grasping these moments as they come, and taking flight, so to speak.

"Blackbird"  (Lennon and McCartney)
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life 
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

deliberate meanderings

It's been 2 weeks since I took off my firefighter/ medic uniform for the (temporarily!) last time, 2 weeks of frantic painting/ weeding/ planning/ stressing/ laughing/ loving, and 2 weeks of having this kind of inner bloom. There's a big transition going on... beyond the move to Portland, the selling of the house, beyond the flow of time and work and love. Something is growing inside me, small, indefatigable, relentless, insistent, joyous and impatient all at the same time.

I'm not pregnant, at least not with a baby. While it's true that there are parts of me that long for a baby with such an incredible man, that chapter-- short of a miracle-- is over for me. I can't even put the proper words to what I feel. It's like a gentle yet insidious unfurling. Mostly joyous, and a little restless. I felt this same thing the late afternoon I stepped foot on Kathmandu soil 12 years ago; that same sense of hugeness and longing and possibility. More than anything, it's a coming home of sorts. A reclamation of something so deeply and potently feminine and fiercely sacred. I'm eager for what is to come, and perhaps a little terrified. Was it Nelson Mandela or Marianne Williamson (they are both given credit often) that said-- and I'm going to paraphrase-- that our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure?

Transitions, changes, growth. These all come with a sense of loss, as well, and I struggle to find the right places to bracket my feelings of leaving my dearest girlfriends, the straggly gawky project house I've nurtured and fought for the last 5 years, my job with BFD, and my sense of pride and independence at more than 5 years of single divorced mama-hood. For now, I just let the feelings come, and rather than fighting them as I have in the past (grief takes time and patience), I'm finding a way to accept and even thank them.

So-- thank you, insecurity and anxiety! I fully acknowledge that it is your job to challenge the soul lead by heart and love rather than logic and manipulation, and I accept your challenge. You give me the chance to show how brave I can be. Thank you, sense of loss! I have always treasured my friends, but you have given more clarity to the gems that they really are, and how a network of amazing women is just that-- weblike, more infinite than we could imagine, and powerfully connected. Thank you, anger and hostility! Luckily, I don't have to stare this one personally in the face every day or even every month, but you've taught me that the root of these things is pain and fear, and pain must be loved like a needy, hungry baby, and fear embraced without judgement. This has been a big one for me-- I've felt powerless over certain situations that affect my husband and kid(s), and if there's anything I hate with an absolute passion, it's feeling like I can't protect the ones I love most. It's been nothing short of revolutionary to discover through work and introspection that the root answer to this-- is actually Love, in the purest of forms. Love, empathy, and focusing on what I can effect right in front of me.

What we think, so we become. The simple act of walking into the world expecting-- and believing in!-- good (even in the face of being shown otherwise at times) is the most powerful lesson I've started to grasp through all these transitions.

1:37 in the morning, and here I am. True to form, awake, contemplating the many evolutions and transitions that I am immersed (albeit mostly happily) in, gnawing on the vague fear of change and the unknown, and coming back to the little voice that has been chirping at me louder and louder, "write".

So this is my solemn small late-night over-tired hungry promise, sent out really to nowhere, but to myself: Write. This tiny secret of your passion, and small seed of hope that you've carried since writing the 12 page story about Peter and the Unicorn in 4th grade... write.

Okay then.

I'll be back.

Testing

Just checking out a new program for iPhone/ iPad. New to ne, anyway... Tine to give this blog a little new life.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone