Hello Newness and Familiar Newness
So, just a note to talk about the hurricane's eye perspective of the last few months. So much change happening around me, with less going on inside. I'm more in assimilation and processing mode. It feels like the kind of swirly twirl that tends to accompany Big Transitions, by which I mean bigger, even, than moving 800 miles.
Going back to school has flirted through my brain for a bit more than a decade. Serious contemplation began in the early 2000s. Focused purposeful exploration joined the thronging thought beings in 2004. And today, it begins!
Here is a thing I enjoy: looking back and creating personal mythologies about alignment. They might be accurate, they might not be accurate, but they are useful tools for reflection and insight-gathering. Memory highlights the mirrors we most need to see, in my experience. So I try to pay attention to what stands out, to weave a narrative that is open to revision as I remember more, remember better, add a layer of new information. For me growth happens in this semi-crabwise fashion. Maybe it's more spidery and my water bias is showing. Webs are a better metaphor. Areas are visited, revisited, new connections and intersections are built. The pattern becomes increasingly refined.
I think I'll stop before I get to the dusty cobweb part. Or not. Webs that no longer serve are abandoned or cut away to make space for new creations. There. That ham-handed analogy is complete. Lucky are we! Now I can move on!
The things that have been flying part my Dorothy windows with the most persistent vigor are old dynamics, past relationships up for fresh contemplation, opportunities to commit more fully, opportunities to clarify and elevate. Am I releasing useless luggage in preparation for future baggage of a more serviceable sort? Perhaps.
I joined FaceBook for work, in order to perform some analysis regarding that particular paradigm of 'social networking'. My real name is the one I use. I don't friend people from work, with one key exception. I decided to immerse myself in the most normal version of site interaction that I could. There have been some predictable downsides emerging, some reasonable benefits, and some surprising outcomes. Rich. Among them, I have reconnected with the firefighter friend who bailed when I fell in her station (not because she didn't care, but because she was already dealing with a major mental health crisis -- trauma from 13 years of paramedic and fire fighting work -- and just couldn't bear to be present. I understood, missing her. We'd been friends for more than 15 years when it happened. So, we've connected and there are tender tenuous threads and lovely reminders of the well of love into which we dipped so freely before the accident. Lovely that.
The first boy who caused me to feel pretty found me. He is an incredibly gifted human and it's thrilling to see how his life has unfolded, the joy he experiences. Healing balm.
A handful of others have emerged. Some I knew better than others, back then. Some I barely remember (my own traumatic memory weirdness). But there is a warmth. And emerging, "Hey. We're still alive. That's got some value." It's poignant for my graduating class who lost so many members so quickly.
Outside of FB, the unpacking of a handmade object prompted me to breach the boundary set by my ex- regarding contact. It seemed only right for him to get to pick what happened to the object in question. The result is a green reconnection for which I am very grateful. He is so visibly comfortable in his skin, so happily mated with a brilliant and gracious woman, so much empowered. It feels like a gossamer and nearly unspeakable privilege to have this opportunity to make gentle contact. We got together once and will again. Ease prevailed. Peace. Who gets to have these miracles?
Back in FB, a person who I considerd ignoring when the friend request showed up (he was my brother's childhood friend and roadied for my band at one point--and was not very nice to me) but accepted out of respect for my brother was the vehicle for me finding out about a former bandmate's death, within hours of its occurrence. How odd.
These moments. These times when past elements present themselves so clearly for present review and dispensation, recategorization, they are so precious! After much of a lifetime spent flailing through a cottony fog of overloaded input channels and crazy natal home dynamics, to have such clarity... There are not words. It feels like an arrival and a departure in the same breath. So perfect. So crystaline.
And on the heels of this, I point my car to the north and the the west and head off to school.
-Dot
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