about sharing

I think I am compelled to share with others because I know viscerally how awful it feels when someone withholds what they have. My mom withheld so much - knowledge, insight, love. She held it close in case she might lose it, focusing so tightly that she missed seeing her impact on me. Putting on makeup. Folding clothes. Weeding. Drawing and painting. Choosing plants and deciding where to put them. Digging in the dirt. Baking bread.

I am self-taught, mainly. I watched when I could. Watching without questions, learning to avoid speaking and asking for guidance. Her responses were exasperated and impatient, in attitude dismissive and even contemptuous. Her words were rarely kind, usually sharp and critical. Looking for flaws and error, she found them in abundance. But why were they errors? What didn't I know yet? How could I know if no one explained things to me? Why was I to blame for not knowing what I didn't know? The inexplicable is still incomprehensible.

So let me share, let me explain, let me seek progress, let me applaud learning, let me celebrate the risk involved in exposing one's lack of knowledge in hopes of gaining it, let me emanate an attitude of safety, comfort, support, positive reinforcement. Let me share what I now have learned, and perhaps heal my still-seeping wounds and bind up the gaps in my heart.

about my path

From "Today's Gift from Hazelden" July 14, 2007:

How can I be sure I'm doing my Higher Power's will? There is, of course, no certain way to know, but what I rely on is an inner sense of lightness and rightness. I pray for guidance, I ask for answers, I listen to my inner voice, and I talk to people whose opinion I respect. I also believe if what I'm doing is not my Higher Power's will for me, I'll find out, since it won't work.

I believe something very similar to this. I do ask for knowledge of my Higher Power's will for me and the power to carry it out. I believe the two go together - that when I gain knowledge of the next right step for me to take, I will also gain the ability and willingness to take that step. Ability and willingness = power to carry it out. And "carry it out" means action, not thought. Intentions are great and intentions fulfilled, made evident and tangible are fantastic. Unfulfilled intentions are a source of regret for me. I don't intend to live my life with regrets. Sadness, yes. That is unavoidable. I am sad about options I have not chosen, and about possibilities and wishes that for whatever reason have not manifested in my life. They were not on my path.

My path is tortured, tortuous, twisted and delightful.
Around every turn is the inevitable unexpected.
I see near and far other paths with their own rises, mountains, plains and vales
and pine for them. Wistful choices not mine to make.

By turns the yearning deepens abysmally.
Rivers run with lost possibility, fed from my aquifer of tears.

Loss taps into geysers, smoothing sharp pains.

And I keep moving, curious.

On a rise, I turn back to behold an amazing vista,

the marvelous scope of my life. Only then do I comprehend

the landscape sculpted by experience, deeply detailed by pain and by love,

colored by feeling, and shaded by other paths entwined with mine.