Words’ End

Got five more from a woman of much insight, so naturally, they’re good to write about.

Thoughtful. A quality I am told I possess, and certainly one I seek out in others. My default synonym for it is not so much “considerate” or “compassionate” as “thinking.” A person of action who thinks before she acts is even better. I personally tend more toward thinking than action, and work to balance the two out. Right now, spring into summer into fall, is the best time for me to do that.

Provided that, you know, we get any actual summer over here. My friend Rosa recently remarked that summer had fallen on a [4th of July] weekend in Boston this year, but I hold out hope that we’ll see some summer yet. Meanwhile, when it’s not raining, it’s perfect biking weather.

Changes. Sometimes they’re like stray kittens that start tagging along on the street, whether you want them to or not, follow you home and settle down there. Sometimes they tear your house apart, and you wish you’d never met them. Other times you look at them and see possibilities that might, in other circumstances, not have occurred at all.

Two of the three biggest changes in my life—emigration, life partnership, and then divorce—were not of my making. Some changes have happened to me, and then it’s a matter of managing my own reactions to them. Other changes, though, I have effected myself—to be clear, usually with the help of others. I like changes. They’re exhilarating, they terrify me, they shake me out of the everyday. Changing the course of my graduate education; sharing my home with people I hardly knew at the beginning, several times over the years; falling in love after falling down hard, and before the healing was over, letting my guard down and gambling and winning at lovers. So far the big changes have been a net gain.

Some changes require more courage than others. Some changes require more energy than others.

I also look for stability in some aspects of my life. For some things to be unchanging. For gravity to continue working, for my beloveds to keep flying with me on the wings of our own creation, for people I can feed with food I cook, for a home from which I don’t move for a good long while. But the changes, they keep coming, they don’t stop; and so mostly the stability I seek is an internal, core thing.

Rest. That thing I don’t get enough of. I’ve stopped making as many social plans as I’d like, in an effort to get alone time. To read, to cook, to sleep. It doesn’t happen every day, but it’s getting better. Energy reserves still mostly depleted, but rest droplets are re-filling the backup vessel little by little.

Reserved. I am, when I need it so I can rest. My heart’s energy is, mostly for those who give back. My respect is, for people who make things happen in the world, and also for people who keep their word.

Moving. Moving forward, which I do on purpose every day. Moving on, which I can’t do because the universe decided to throw a big protracted lesson in learned helplessness in my path, and I spend some time most days fighting to protect my integrity. Getting a move on in the morning, which always takes more time than I think it will and can be gloriously slow because I get up early enough to allow that to happen. Moving aside so as to not get in my own way. Moving out of And/Or and into SCD in pursuit of a life I want. Moving with the rhythm of my surroundings, sometimes adding my own drumline to it. Allowing myself to be moved by breathtaking beauty, kindness, light.