the generosity of space

I feel disoriented. I feel depleted. I feel a bit displaced. I'd love to say that all this letting go and moving from one adventure to another has been effortless and easy but it's not true. There's enough of 'me' (old patterns of thought, action, and belief) still living in this Martha body-mind that the week or 10 days leading up to our departure from 186 Iron Kettle Road in Warner, NH were demanding and difficult. 

burning up some symbols of our experience

It's been a big, exhausting period of high energy output. We're out. We've officially sold our home and we're in a bardo between worlds. Most of our belongings were sold or given away. Some have found their way to a storage unit awaiting relocation. Other objects, mostly tools, find themselves housed in a utility trailer parked at a friend's home.

This morning I was finally writing in my journal and getting caught up with myself. I haven't made time for this kind of indulgence for nearly two weeks. I reflected on feelings of sadness that in all the to-do'ing and planning, organizing, and strategizing leading up to our move, I failed to really sink into the experience of being present with the space that was dissolving around me.

The space of 186 Iron Kettle is no longer there in the same way. A new space is happening there, growing out of the one left behind by the four of us (Bradford, the dogs, me) and all the people that showed up in that space over the 2+ years we called it 'home.' As I moved through my last meetings with clients in early August, I was aware of saying 'goodbye' not so much to the humans as I was saying 'goodbye' to the dimension of connection that was fostered in the space between us and around us.

Space seems to have an energy all to itself, perhaps not so different from a human or an animal. Over the years, Bradford and I gave ourselves to the space through cleaning, clearing, designing, building, and creating. More significantly, however, the space gave itself to us. The offerings were less tangible but maybe more enduring. Space seems to draw us into an experience of absolute connection. A person doesn't exist outside of a space and yet most of us take this kind of generosity for granted.

the loaded rigs

I can't capture the sense of space I felt at 186 Iron Kettle for you in words. I can't capture it through images. Hours spent sitting on the front porch listening to the wisdom of wind through the tree's high branches to the west of our property. Being enveloped in the truth of 'no-time,' watching the skies revision themselves through cloud and color from a rocking chair looking north. Light being momentarily caught in a diamond of dew holding carelessly to a lilac leaf like falling didn't matter. Nothing I write will deliver something true to you about the space I was living in nor help you understand how this space affected me.

I don't feel sad so much because our time on Iron Kettle is over as I feel regret for not taking more moments to sink in and lose myself in the experience of its dying. Oh, that I could fall more deeply into love with every passing, ephemeral experience - see that it's never coming back and allow myself to be forever altered. That's a lot to ask for but the rewards make it worthwhile.

Fortunately, our last day living in Warner found us driving to Grafton Pond before sunrise. If you ever have an opportunity to paddle out on a quiet lake, free of motors, in the moments before dawn, don't pass it up. Allow yourself to paddle out and be swallowed by the fullness of silence. Allow yourself to get lost in the weight of emptiness. Fill yourself with the abundance of space as it reveals its generous gifts.

If the space of 186 Iron Kettle Road can hear me, I say 'thank you.' To you I will dedicate more presence, more awakeness, and more awe to the beauty that is always being offered up from the world around me.

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flying the freak-flag!

happy whack jobs

This morning I turned back the clock. I stepped inside an earlier time in my life and I looked around.

Writing is my thing. I'm not necessarily a skilled writer. I'm a happy writer. I use writing to explore an experience. I use writing to both hide and reveal myself. And there's a side benefit to writing, it helps me remember when remembering is what I want to do.

My sister, Jane, has an outstanding memory. My memory feels porous in contrast. Photographs and words allow me to recall something I once experienced - whether my recollection of facts is accurate, the words help me return emotionally to another time and place.

This morning I called up old writings, ramblings which took the form of my previous blog. I was quite taken to step back into parts of this earlier life. I felt generous towards myself. While journal-writing can be viewed as self-indulgent, I've made a habit of it since early adulthood. I like my ramblings because I like the spirit of the soul whom I see through the words and images. I like how earnest she sounds.

If you were to click on writings from 2011 and 2012, you would read stories from another time - looking for and buying a home, moving into private practice out of said home. Now, today, I'm in a different place - a place of letting everything go. 

I feel embarrassment rise up. The critic in me looks at my decisions over the last 3 years with hardness, holding me to a standard that I'm not sure I've ever met. Its voice sounds eerily like my father-in-law's: "what kind of loser buys a house and sells it 2 years later?! you're a whack job, building a successful business and turning it around and leaving it behind! What is wrong with you?!"

Maybe this 'standard' I've been holding myself to is not so much a standard as it is simply one way of being in the world. Maybe stable, stalwart and settling into one experience is not the way this creature I am moves. Perhaps "success" can be defined in many ways. 

Certainly my resume reflects moving, shifting, engaging new and different experiences. Is that wrong? My financial status doesn't so much shine with sturdiness as it does being freeform. And as we purchased and moved into this beautiful home 2.5 years ago, I was yielding to an idea of becoming rooted in one place. This idea might have been a fantasy. However, I don't believe it was a mistake. In the last few years, I've been given so many beautiful moments of falling in love, feeling into a space, meeting myself through a new endeavor and being altered by the people who came to this lovely environment for support.

I fear I'm falling prey to the impulse to defend myself to my own inner critic - likely this will only cause it to have more credence. Simply, perhaps the success of a life is too narrowly assessed through balance sheets and income statements. How do financial statements accommodate learning (answer: Education & Training Expense)? How do they reveal the innumerable moments of feeling moved to tears by beauty? Where do financial statements reflect moments of inspiration? Laughter? and Love? I look to my right and in the early morning light just breaking into dawn, Onslow is curled up and dreaming. I realize that adopting this lovely being came directly out of our decision to buy a property that could host his happiness and health. I wouldn't be who I am in this rocking chair today without him. How do I account for Onslow on a financial statement (answer: Food Expense, Veterinary Expense)?

relaxing at 'home'

And so, today marks my last day in private practice - at least private practice as it is generally defined (seeing 6+ clients in a day within an office setting for an hour at a time). The last couple weeks I've been closing up with the people I see in my practice and I've felt so moved, so altered by how they have shown up in my life. In showing up with their stories of pain, with their vulnerability and sense of being lost or frozen in fear, I have been forever changed. While many have expressed their gratitude that I have in some way helped them, I don't think I have been able to convey to any of them what their presence has done for me.

While my income statement reflects how I was paid for my time in the last couple of years, it in no way reveals what really happened. To these wonderful and beautiful souls I devote my ongoing journey. Sounds paradoxical. Some people would say that I could better express my devotion by continuing to work with them as their therapist. But that's not the way I view life. The practice and the property began to feel like items of clothing that no longer fit very well; like a sweater or a pair of pants that felt right and comfortable for a few years but through changes in my body no longer clothed me naturally, binding in some places and gapping in others.

Of course I feel a little unsettled sitting here today, not knowing where we will be living at the end of next week nor from where my next paycheck will come. What I saw as I re-read some of my writings from years ago is that I've been 'here' before; I was living in contact with the unknown with $9 in my bank account just before it was revealed that I was about to go to Portugal to learn massage and then begin to practice in New London. Life generally asks that we let go of that which we grip before it can gift us with new delights.

happy to be your helper!

A 'friend' from my practice gave me a beautiful card yesterday as our session came to a close. In it was written: 

Sometimes life takes you down new and unexpected roads.

This too is part of the ride.

Remember, when nothing is certain, anything is possible.

There's good evidence to suggest I'm a flakey, unstable whack job. Maybe the world needs more of us. Sounds rich from the voice of a so-called 'trained professional.'

So, here's to all the friends I made on this part of my adventure! May each of us find our own way to embrace and expose our inner freak.

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