Endlessly amazed at the enormous miracle of my new, magical home, my settling in process brings repeating lessons about slowing down
about surrendering into the organic rhythm and flow of anything I'm doing.
After weeks and weeks of such intense (albeit slow-paced) activity preparing to move, moving and settling in, I am slowly reclaiming my “normal life.” Lazy afternoon or evening naps and reading and walking in the mountains with my mind adrift. Tuning back into the natural world around me as spring continues to unfurl her wonders. The dazzling bright blues of wild delphinium, the shocking red splashes of penstamen and paintbrush, the delicate stalks of magenta and burgundy douglasia. The creamy whites of old man’s beard, chemise, wild alyssum and pearly everlasting. The dainty sprays of yellow flowered wild onion and waves of yellow broome. Such remarkable beauty all along the trails!
In my own newly relocated garden, roses, pansies, petunias, nastursiums, rose geraniums and blue salvia delight the eye and spirit. Mustard greens, bok choy, Russian kale and chards have taken nicely to being transplanted from the ground into pots. This year’s heirloom tomatoes, also in pots rather than the ground, seem happily to be filling with promising yellow blossoms.
I miss being surrounded–as I would be in the grove at this time of the year–by the overwhelmingly heady musk of orange blossoms. I choose walks that pass through or near other groves for brief “hits” of that old intoxication. Even without the profusion of orange flowers nearby, I still hear the usual pervasive and steady hum of bees in the valley. Here in my own little meadow they tend the other sorts of trees and shrubs that are also in flower. The orange blossom Bacchanalia is really all I do seem to miss about my old “homestead” in the grove. In every other way, my new cottage in the meadow is a quantum and utterly delicious leap from the old cottage.
I keep thinking, as I did when I wrote last month, that the settling in process is complete. Then, I seem always to be discovering yet one more project that calls my time and attention. The latest “just one more thing” has been the almost two week long task of re-creating a drip irrigation system for my now more than 60 pots. Of also resurrecting and repairing a defunct system that used to water the shrubs and trees in and around the edge of the meadow. Hoses and tubing, sprayers and drippers salvaged from the old cottage provided much of what I needed. But, there seemed endlessly to be a little more of this or that to be added to make things right. Always just one more trip to the nursery or the irrigation supply store.
I ached so for a return to totally empty time! I tried, by working very long days, to hurry the project along to completion. Some misguided part of me having quite forgotten all that I’ve learned so well about having-an-agenda and trying-to-get-back-to my “real” life: Try to push-the-river and you just get soaking wet! Three days of frustration, feeling thwarted and exhausted to the point of tears before I had my “Aha!”
Mud and scratch covered, frizzy hair full of little twigs and leaves from crawling under bushes to excavate old, brush covered hose lines, I sat in tears at the end of another day of not yet “being done with it.” Then the light came on! It would all be “done” just whenever it was time to be done. I could drive myself trying to get “there” or I could simply surrender into the process. If I’d give up my imposed timetable and accept Spirit’s timing, I could relax into the middle of it. I could take breaks to rest and read even though the work was still in process. What a concept!
I realized, once again, how hard it is to drop back out of the “keep doing” mode once circumstances (like the whole move) have drawn me back into it. Once in that mode, there’s a compelling, driving need to get everything done before I can have my own permission to relax, to rest, to “lollygag.” The old compulsive overachiever of my past rises up and takes over the wheel. My recovering overachiever self gets bulldozed.
Yet, intense frustration and feelings of being thwarted always come right along with that driving energy. They seem the inevitable consequence of trying to impose one’s will on anything that has a rhythm of its own. It’s those feelings that wake me up again. Those irritations that remind me of the truth. Awake, I remember that there is no “where” to get, no “right” timing, only the process itself and the timing that unfolds.
Even once re-awakened, it is a slow process, this letting go into timeless, agenda-less time. I stretch out to read in the hammock and find myself racing through the pages. I sit down to a leisurely lunch and find myself eating way too quickly! All so I can get “back to the important stuff.” I catch myself, shake my head at myself and laugh. And feel a little sad, too. The old, socially reinforced paradigm so ingrained, so right there at the ready, despite all the learning of all these years about going slow, taking breaks, moving in “organic,” agenda-less time.
I sit lovingly and compassionately with my still-stumbling self. And, I realize that part of my getting caught up in the “keep doing” mode has to do with feeling not-quite-ready to just be here in this new space, in this new life that’s been given to me.
I feel as though a zipper that I didn’t know was there has opened in me. That something that had become too small, too constraining has fallen away. That I am expanding, overflowing, moving into more extendedness, energetically. It feels both exhilarating and edgy. When I’m able to sit quietly with these wondrous new feelings, I feel completely overcome with the outrageous magic of this incredible new living space. How absolutely perfectly “home” it feels. How before it appeared, I’d seen nothing that was anywhere near to what it is and what it offers. I feel stunned by the enormous blessings brought to me by Spirit/the Grandmothers. I feel opened out and opened in all at once. Profoundly, lovingly cared for by Spirit. Rewarded for my radical trust. For my unwillingness to collapse and “settle” in the face of so much that so undermined that trust. Humbled. Brimming with gratitude and joy.
Metaphors of the transformation abound. Houseplants that did just fine at the old house are suddenly sprouting, exuberant with new growth. Where before I slept surrounded by orderly rows of lushly fruiting orchard trees, now I am sleeping in the middle of a wild meadow. Now there is openness in every direction, 300 degrees of expansive mountain vistas. Trees of every color, and description in wildly luscious disarray everywhere the eye can see. For all the sense of outdoors–indoors from all the windows at the old house, here outdoors and indoors truly flow into each other through the profusion of wide-open French doors. Ms Pretty and I wander in and out of them all day! Everywhere there are inviting and comfortable places to roost just outside each set of doors. And, while from the grove I was in walking distance to wild places, here I am in walking distance both to wild places and to the town itself.
Most amazing of all, here I have a separate room that’s just my study and studio. A space that I can leave in creative chaos and still have somewhere else to go (my “big” room) that gives me the order and calmness that I need to “quiet” in. And long, long vistas of utter wildness from my desk. Such an amazing gift this unexpected, unsought separate room for writing! A womb with views!
It’s all so much to take in, to relax into and to revel in. I move very slowly into just being here in the midst of all this extravagant abundance, this expansiveness outside and inside of me. Only in the past few days am I feeling more fully in me in this place. I feel so very full, a welling up of joy in my chest!
Years of emotional and psychic healing in therapy and in my own inner work had allowed me to expand and live well beyond the damaging constraints of my childhood experiences. Yet, for some time I kept feeling there was more expansion possible. That remnants of childhood pain stored in my physical being were constraining me. I searched–fruitlessly for quite a while–for some way to open those physical locks. Almost three years ago I found the key. Working with the Feldenkrais/energy healer I’ve been seeing these three years seems to be dissolving those constraining remnants. Not an erupting or breaking out of the too-smallness that I’d imagined it would be. Much more a soft, gentle stretching of the membrane into permeability. The quietly “opening zipper” that allows what’s inside to flow outward. So wonderful and tender.
As this delicious opening expands and unfolds, I am beset with an often-intense discomfort in my back along my lower right ribs. A discomfort that intensifies when I breathe deeply. It spreads out now from an area alongside my spine where an impenetrable “black fist of a knot” has lived for almost 35 years. A knot that no amount of acupuncture, Rolfing, massage, energy work or visualization has been able to unravel all these years. The opening that’s now happening in me is beginning to unknot that knot. The place where the talons of my mother’s rage have been long embedded. I talk tenderly to that frightened, “holding on for dear life” place in my body being. I promise her that we can be all of ourself safely now. That we can go as slowly as she needs to feel that safety.
It is a very slow healing and releasing process that asks me to hold myself with enormous tenderness and patience in the middle of the ongoing, only very slowly dissipating discomfort. To embrace the discomfort rather than try to push it faster than it seems able to move. This lesson of not pushing–of paying close attention to the natural flow of everything and every process–is an endlessly repeating one. I learn it over and over again. Very little in the “outside” world ever supports this learning. It is always my own journey itself that provides the confirming support I need.
A really “big” example of that came this month. Eight years ago a very wonderful literary agent called me–out of the blue–to tell me she was interested in representing me. She’d had one of my decks of Rememberings and Celebrations cards for quite some time and loved them. And, she’d kept thinking of contacting me. When one of her most well known authors (a friend of mine) was visiting and talked with her about having the cards and knowing me, the agent knew that the time had come to make the call. Did I have a book for her or would I be interested in having her coach and mentor me into producing one?
I was so taken by this amazing gift, this generous offer from this thoroughly delightful woman! We had juicy talks exploring each other and the possibilities. I shared all of the writings I had done till then. It was all very flattering and very exciting. For a few tortuous months I tried to see if I could write or put together something with which we could begin. I came, finally, to understand that, wonderful as the offer was, it just wasn’t time for me to embark on such a project. It felt like “too much work!” We agreed then that, when and if I were ever to feel ready, I would definitely call her.
I’ve thought about her and her offer now and then across the years, always with a smile but no impetus to call. From time to time I’ve thought–as I wrote the monthly Bulletin Board and Musings columns for the web site–that I might be writing pieces that could become a book someday. My friend Barbara–who nudged (and coached) me into doing the web site in the first place–has been convinced of that from the very beginning. I would, in the early days, always ask her to stop talking that way. It made me feel pushed ahead of where I was. I just loved the play of writing a little bit every month. I wasn’t ready to see anything about “where it might lead.”
Oddly, as I found myself coming to writing the Musings for the last of the 58 cards, I saw myself beginning to think about just that. To think about how all that was on the site might actually be woven into a hardcopy manuscript. That led me to thinking about the agent and our agreement. But, still, it was just idle musing on possible possibilities, not a plan by any means.
Then last month, I had an unusual struggle writing the monthly journal (Bulletin Board) column. It was just a week after the upsetting interactions with my old landlord during a final “walk-through” at the old cottage. Interactions so reminiscent of all the dealings with my angry, always laceratingly critical mother. Interactions that profoundly stirred and resonated the old pain, frustration and rage of my childhood and adolescence. Usually, as I write the monthly journal column, I seem blithely to meander on about whatever’s happened during the month that seems to want to be written about. Often I’m quite surprised and fascinated by where I meander and where I wind up. Usually it’s an intriguing and delightful process.
But, last month, it became excruciating and quite challenging. Suddenly as I began writing about the process of finding my new house, the ugly, critical voice of my long stilled “hatchet lady” rose up with great ferocity. “What makes you think that anyone cares about all this? Just who do you think you are? Why would anyone care about your navel-contemplating anyway! You’re so incredibly self-involved it’s pathetic!” I was stunned! Thrown by her venomous and sudden resurgence.
I knew not to take her words seriously to heart. Instead, I immediately recognized that someone inside was feeling terrified by my choosing to tell my stories. And, I could see that the frightened part was resorting to a very old way to get my attention, to get me to slow down. I would stop each of the several times that this happened along the way of the writing. I would lovingly and soothingly talk with her to help her feel safe to continue. I took lots of slowing down breaks. Baffled, all the while, by what had stirred up this long ago quieted voice.
As I went to bed that night after finishing the telling of my tales, understanding dawned. The whole interchange with my landlord, the invalidating nastiness of it, the denigrating of my contributions had reawakened my oldest most primal fears. The fears that my unself-consciously being all of myself, my feeling full of myself would stir anger and retaliation in others. The old “hatchet lady” (inner critic) voice popped up in an instant to get me “back in line.”
Of course, it didn’t work the way it used to. Still, it was an exhausting experience. And, as I sent the columns off to my “preview” list of friends and clients in the middle of the night, I did have some uneasy feelings. An odd sense of not being quite sure that any of what I wrote mattered to anyone but me.
When I woke the next morning, I found some six notes from my preview cohort waiting for me. Usually I don’t get or expect any responses. From time to time I may get one or two. These were clearly a “thumbs up” from Spirit. Each of them saying how incredibly synchronous and supportive and confirming the tales were for them. The emails confirmed the feeling I’d awakened with. It was indeed time now to contact the agent. Time to begin the process I hadn’t been ready for eight years ago!
So now I’ve reconnected with her, after a couple of weeks of phone tag. And, she seems as excited as I am about the prospect of working together! As I finish this monthly journal piece, I expect I’ll begin to write the introduction that’s been writing itself in my head for days. And, I’ll begin the practical work of putting the texts of each of the 59 musings into a single document (the manuscript!).
I’ve already been gathering all the other kinds of information and background she wants to see along with the manuscript. Web site traffic reports, selected emails from web site readers, updated personal/professional biographic material all these eight years later, information about catalog sales. It all feels absolutely right! Fun, like the bit by bit writing has been these past five and a half years.
It all feels so very, very exciting and even quite daring for some parts of me. I’ve promised myself to go slowly and listen to every voice inside that has anything to say about the process. I’ve realized that, for the past five and a half years I’ve had a chance to write my tales and send them out just exactly as they came to me. Now, I think I can pass them on, without angst, for whatever editing and organizing makes sense to those who deal with “the market.” I know that I’ll still listen to any concerns that arise in me. But, I don’t think I’ll be too attached to my words to tolerate serious editing. Still, who really can say?
There’s an odd postscript to the upsetting episode with my former landlord. Just days after I finished with processing the aftermath of her nastiness, I did receive a note from her. I wondered, as I opened it, what new vitriol there might be in it. In fact, it was actually a note apologizing “for any ill feeling that [she] may have caused.” And, it went on to express her and her husband’s gratitude “for the many years of your positive presence on our little Rancho.” And, she went on further to “acknowledge the care you have shown to us and given to our place.”
I was surprised and pleased. It seemed important that she could finally say something honoring of my time in her world. Nevertheless, it left unchanged my feeling that she’s a person I wouldn’t ever want to deal with again!
Originally published May 2005
