I'm feeling very sleepy, and glad to be tucked under the comforter right now. Today has been a wonderful day of sunshine and connecting to beautiful people. It has also been a day of surprises, and confusions. I feel like I have fewer answers than ever about some things. But in the same breath, I feel like I have greater clarity about some of those very same things. And I am grateful that I enjoy the juxtaposition.
It is a challenge to type much right now, after a somewhat nasty fall today. I woke up this morning feeling very clear that I needed to walk to Main Street and spend some time writing on paper about things that I wasn't feeling inclined to bring to this blog, and as I made my way down the street, my dear neighbor Lynn and her boyfriend Skip drove up. We stopped our ways to chat, and then moved to a driveway to continue the chatting as another car came by to pass. As we parted ways, and they drove uphill, I turned to walk downhill, and BOOM! Out of nowhere, I was falling to the ground. I landed on my left wrist first, and the scrape is deep and painful. My knees were both scraped, too, through my pants. I rolled over to check out the damage and was grateful that my favorite linen pants hadn't been torn in the fall. But my left hand was looking pretty nasty. As the day continued, the wrist began to feel bruised and swollen, and has become hard to move. I am sure that with rest it will be fine in a few days. But for now, it does limit some things that I need to do - tomorrow's teaching artist work won't happen, and massaging on Tuesday, too, will need to be rearranged.
I had a most incredible night at the Oella Community potluck last night. These community gatherings always bring together amazing folks, both new and seasoned, and my soul is filled to the brim with joy and goodness. It's funny, last weekend I spent time dancing, and found that I had confronted some major fears about dancing. And last night, in addition to playing drums and rattles and flute, I found myself deeply called to sing...in spite of my fear about singing. It seems to me that these fears that I have held are disintegrating right in front of me. I didn't do anything to get over my fears of dancing - I just decided to dance. I didn't do anything to get over my fear of singing - I just followed the spark in my heart to sing. And I wonder, is it really that easy all the time? Is it my own thinking and tightness that get in the way of letting go of every fear that I have?
There have been so many things shifting within me in the last month. From having had the realization that I am no longer the isolated, introverted loner that I used to be, to letting go of these recent fears about dancing and singing...it seems that many of the fears that I have had about the ways that other people think of me/judge me/receive me have been largely washed away. And what I am feeling now is that there is this great freedom to just be who I am, to follow whatever passions I have, to love myself and others for who they are, and to know that the only true limitations within my life are of my own creation. It's funny...back in Peru this summer, I felt too shy to freely sing out in ceremony...and last night, I sang out joyfully without fear, by choice!
But there was a shadow of darkness in the atmosphere for me last night. An old fear came to visit as a messenger. The fear of being fully alive and expressing myself authentically and joyfully...the fear believes that if I am like this, then I will be "too much" for other to take, and that I need to temper my own expression, my own joy, my own full personality in order to be accepted. And now, I don't buy it for a minute - there was no part of me that was going to go back into suppression, into hiding, into restraining the fullness of who I am. NO WAY!! But there was a shadow of doubt that maybe I was right in some ways in that old story - that maybe there are some people who just can't handle my intensity...or perhaps some people are still in hiding too, keeping the fullness of themselves deeply buried within, barely allowing the jewel of their beings to shine brightly. And while I can empathize with that, and have been there, I see the truth of my own growth - I am not there anymore. I am so lucky to have felt genuine acceptance from my community, to know that I am loved and embraced for who I am, without reservation. And I am also deeply lucky to have found this within myself too, no longer beating myself up and wishing I was different in this way or that way. Nope, I feel like I am finally able to start understanding what it means to accept what is. And it's not like I imagined at all. It's way better, in fact. =)
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