Blown Apart
It has been a few weeks since I have written. I have been very busy - moving, getting settled in the new job and new surroundings. I have thought of you and this space but haven’t felt ready to put words on paper about the experience. I am on a journey of discovery – discovery of myself, my new city, my new workplace, my new people. As is often true of journeys of discovery, I have not been able to pinpoint or put into words exactly what that looks like. I keep coming back to the song “Graceland” by Paul Simon. These lyrics in particular:
And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart
Everybody sees you’re blown apart
Everybody sees the wind blow.
In recovery circles, we talk a lot about how substances fill the “god-sized hole” in our lives. I found my cabin to be a place where nature and quiet and meditation helped me find a spiritual outlet to fill the “god-sized hole” of my life. Yet, in taking this next step in my life, I have intentionally lost that outlet. I am blown apart, very vulnerable and raw, and the wind is blowing in the hole left behind.
In spiritual circles, we talk a lot about how to maintain the spiritual outside of the retreat. The past few years have been a much-needed retreat for me. They were the years of finding my center, finding my soul and filling my heart. Now, I am back in the world and that world is very loud and demanding. More lyrics come to mind:
There is a girl in New York City
Who calls herself the human trampoline
And sometimes when I’m falling, flying
Or tumbling in turmoil I say
Oh, so this is what she means.
Most days the world can make me feel like I am falling, flying and tumbling in turmoil. I feel very distant from my higher power, my soul voice. I am leaning heavily on the soul voices of others to help me find my way back to center. I spent the beginning of this year deeply embedded in my values of Joy, Love, Beauty and Magic. But everyday as I have reached towards heaven and earth, I have also asked for Discovery. (Ask and you shall receive?) I am not sure what I am discovering about myself. It feels very much like early sobriety when I was asking desperately what am I learning; and even more desperately, why do I have to learn about myself. I may never fully know or maybe I will know but later rather than sooner.
I am surrendering to the journey of finding my center, finding my soul and filling my heart even when living as a human trampoline.
