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It’s a timid springtime where I am. Warming up only to greet the cold again. A persistent back and forth. Some of us continue to ask the question ‘When will the warmth finally stick around?’ while others shrug. Another bunch have ceased to ask those kinds of questions at all. We can never really know for sure.
It’s raining this morning from where I write. It rained all night. The kind of cozy pitter patter that makes you feel immense gratitude for a warm bed and four walls. I remember sinking more deeply into my pillow as the rain began around midnight. Feeling safe, and protected, I was able to let go and let the water wash over the city, the streets, cars, grass, trees, sidewalks, my emotional body.
In this moment I breathe a steady thank you for such a seemingly simple gift.
Me and a slew of the neighborhood folk who I can only assume also live near the lake have gathered at the local coffee shop this Saturday morning. We all hover near our warm elixirs of the heart. Some of us with the company of a book, others with giant dogs, some with nothing but their half empty mug and morning face.
I woke up early today for this. To land on the page and, hopefully, become still enough for some spirit to walk me through what to say here. How to say it. When. In what order, etc. At first I simply stared mostly blankly at the page. Wondering if I had anything to say, and then, began to write and now I’m here, again.
I wonder if I can let this arrival be a meditation of sorts. In utter realness, a part of me struggles to let this be enough. It wants me to have something revolutionary to put here, and maybe I don’t. Maybe all I have is this moment, this word, this sound, this golden milk. My clear and stubborn truth as a writer, person, alive.
Sometimes all I’ve got is a strange conviction and my curiosity.
Perhaps the ways in which I have been curious lately have something to say. Like how I’ve been playing with the idea of desire as an extension of completion.
To see the things I want to breathe life into as an extension of my own wholeness. Rather than something I must do first in order to be finished, whole or complete. This has definitely brought some luxury to my yearning which can at times feel akin to frustration or desperation in the name of such tiring and false necessity.
Lately, and always, unless of course, I forget (and I do) — I am the pink rose that sits at the center of the vase among the wildflowers. My petals take up as much space as they need. Each daisy and baby’s breath is an extension of my own beauty as the centerpiece of the vase that holds us. I am already the rose. I do not need to be a part of a floral arrangement to be a rose but because I am a rose, it is likely that I will find myself central to something wild, growing or beautiful.
In this way, the flowers that surround me can serve as an analogy for the things that I value and am alike in this lifetime. The main idea is that because I am a rose I want to be among other beautiful flowers. But I do not need to be among other beautiful things to be who I am.
Because I am whole and complete I want to be among my own curiosities, discoveries and experiences that lead me to more of myself. And I am already myself. Already who I came here to be. And who I came here to be has no choice but to continue, and in that sense, I will forever be finding, asking for, inspired by, different and new ways to know myself.
Who is myself? At times, it is a construct. But in truth, it is the one who notices. The gentle awareness swaying beneath the things I hold with my hands, or in my mind.
I must admit, it is great fun to stumble and sometimes soar, sift and see the illusions of what it means to be ‘myself.’
I like to remind myself that I am not the content of my lived experiences, not even what I think about them. I am also not the thought that comes in the form of a rebuttal, justification or explanation. I am the complete and whole one in the foreground who notices that I hear and see with the opportunity to get still enough to begin to intend to listen and be witness to.
I do not need my eyes to witness. I do not need my ears to listen. I only need to be still enough to notice that it is I who notices my noticing.
That’s all for now,
x
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<3 beautiful, thank you