Look at how far she had to go to find her place, to catch the light, to see what is around her.  Her skinny green life-line trembles and bends, but escapes the wind and rain unbroken for now.  It’s late in the summer to be opening her flowers, but that’s what she lives to do.  It’s late in the day to be discovering her, but that doesn’t prove anything.  “Before” isn’t as important as you think.  “Now” counts, if you can get there.

My friend and teacher Rebecca Pavlenko wrote me:

“Sometimes, during times like that, I just need to hibernate, go underground and rest and let renewal find its form.”

Rebecca isn’t merely giving me advice. She is saying that to act on faith is a risk.  When I imagine stopping, a river of chills ripples through me and I think, “But what if I lose it forever?”  To withdraw takes stone-cojones courage.  Surrender is part of what happens when you grow.  And life needs time, like sky needs the rain.

******

If it’s been a good week here,  I owe it all to stormy afternoons and the Pope Farm Conservancy.  As you walk up the hill – a steep-enough glacial drumlin-y sort of hill – you watch the century old stone wall to distract yourself from the effort.  Swallows glide across the path, just a few inches from the grass, showing off deep indigo feathers and sunrise orange bellies.  By the time you reach the top of the rise, where this year’s rotation of corn and sunflowers intersect, you feel you have climbed the world.  The road noise has receded, and you feel very close to faraway things, like the stand of oaks at the horizon.  You can hear the song of your own blood in your ears, and a bright-yellow flash overhead, calling out for a friend.

To mourn is to love again. – Robert Karen, Ph.D, The Forgiving Self

Over vacation, I ate meals with my most treasured people.  What feels better than the assumption of intimacy? Unguarded arguments, words that get right to the point.  The way you asked, “What about you, sweetie?”  Or gently turned my face toward buried dreams, because there is no time to waste.  Or let me say, “I can’t believe that happened to you.  How can I help?” when help was the last thing you imagined.  I slept on your sofas, left dishes in your sink, inconvenienced you with picky eating – and worse. But to no avail.

You love me still.  And I do you.  Let’s just go on in our way, together, until there isn’t any further to go.

I have a few (fairly) Grown Up decisions to make in the next week or so – whether to accept a student loan even though I hope not to use it, how much of my medical bills I can afford to pay – all of which beg a question I often ponder: How the hell did I get put in charge of anything?

I know a few people who seem to have put themselves squarely in charge of their lives, and in their own opinions, are doing an excellent job.  This quality of agency is an important marker of mental health, apparently – which I am supposed to be striving for.  The problem is, I don’t really like being around these people very much.  I distrust their self-assurance.  It seems a glib response to the world I know, regardless of how much better it makes them feel.  In my world, losing your heart’s desire can brand you forever.  In my world, circumstances change without your consent, and you just have to grow on the best you can. In my world, believing that you are masterfully steering your own life seems to be missing the point.

Of course I yearn for a simple answer to the complications of my own heart and mind.  I am scared as hell right now – truly flying without a net (though not without a cheering section, and for that I love you all intensely.)  Yet, if that confidence comes, I think it will be from a place down low, from the very tangle at my feet.  From where all that is broken, and breakable returns to ground and yields.

“Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what’s out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.” ― Pema Chödrön

The gate to the sunflower field was closed, and the parking lot deserted when I got there at 7:30 or so.  We had rain – crazy, green cloud rain – all afternoon, and I thought the lingering raindrops and wet yellow petals might be something to see.  I’m not brave enough to trek up to the field in such an isolate situation, though – even if it is Middleton, WI. But I am “brave” enough to dawdle around the prairie restoration at the edge of the parking lot, where I can skedaddle away when (not if) I get scared.   I stayed until another car drove in, but nothing was spoiled.  I found what I came for.

*******

Lately, I’ve been surprised how much common experience I still share with friends from long ago, far away, and very, very near.  Our circumstances vary quite a bit, but we all seem to be in the same predicaments.  Our work lives have narrowed to the point of requiring some re-habilitation, either of mind or means.  Family complications are so far beyond our control that there is nothing to do but laugh and cry in the same conversation.  I don’t think we’ve changed that much. We’re the same teenaged people, facing up to life’s persistent lesson:  You just don’t know anything, do you?

I feel, for the first time in quite a while, that when I say something honest about my own ineptitudes, at least a few people will nod along with me.  The funny thing is, I think your sympathies were there all along.  Mine was the hardened heart.  How could I feel your empathy when my own thoughts were turned against myself?

My friend said that lately she was wondering where that motivated, excited self of hers had gone.  Just a few years ago, it had seemed so clear what she needed  – no, wanted – to do.  And she had set about it – dived deep, surrendered, engaged – in a way that at the time made me, frankly, a little envious.  I wanted her confidence.  I could see how good it felt.

I was surprised to hear she felt so out of step with her inspiration.  I don’t see her that way, and I said so as unambiguously as I could. (There’s no schadenfreude punchline to this story, in case you think you see that coming).  It’s very hard, this losing of the light.  I’ve sat in the dark most of my life.  I tell myself it’s because I won’t abandon my own sadness, but maybe I am just scared.  Anyway, it’s a feeling I understand and I take no pleasure in thinking someone I love has to grapple with it.

We get a lot of encouragement to commit ourselves totally to a dream.  We are enticed to wear our accomplishments of growth and art like a glowing skin for everyone to admire.  But we have little experience of forgiveness and forbearance with ourselves when the inevitable crash of disappointments shroud our dreams in thunderstorms and fog.  We have to find a different kind of navigation – one that knows our destination without a clearly lighted path.  Of course it’s scary.  In the dark is where the risk is, and risk is really all there is to count on.

It makes sense that sometimes we feel like going away to find ourselves.  We can be quite shy animals, and sometimes it is best to approach our inner world sideways, by increments.  Partly this is because we are not always right in our conclusions about what is happening with us.  We feel we want to look at the situation straight on, but maybe that is just another way of punishing ourselves to avoid really taking the blame.  I don’t know about you but I have found that strategy a useful way of hiding, more than once. Away from home, though, it’s harder to avoid being where you are, even if you feel nervous about missing the bus or getting lost.  You focus on why you are here, whether you are momentarily pleased or not.  And often, you let people help you.  This may be the most alien moment of all.