Once again, I am thankful for libraries. I'm not quite sure what percentage of these posts over nine years have been written at a library, but it's relatively high, and I am thankful for all of them. In fact, thinking carefully, I can picture them all. I may not be able to get here tomorrow, so I wanted to grab another opportunity to breathe. Librarians may not realize they are providing the breath of life, but they are.
I've been hit by an "aha" that helps explain something to me, even though I may be teetering on the edge of stereotyping.
There have been many hard aspects to being a modern female mystic outside all our religious constructs. But as I hit another wall of fear at not seeing a path forward, I realize that it is as much not "feeling" the path toward love as "seeing". I wonder if male mystics and spiritual figures of the past (or present) can cope better than I have with constantly being at odds with the culture, and having to press forward even when not surrounded by acceptance and love. Especially in America, that lone cowboy thing isn't just in the movies, it's part of our ethos...just as, rightly or wrongly, we women are said to crave nesting, opportunities to love, and nurturing. My life has perhaps in that way been strangely male. I've gotten so used to being on a solitary path (despite the dear friends along my pilgrimage), and of my loves and passion hitting brick walls and bouncing back to me, that despite all my talk of love in my posts, I truly haven't had a clue what it would be like to be loved in return for the totality of who I am.
I think my heart opened up sometime in the last few months. Perhaps the woman in me opened up. And the grief has opened up big time, that I learned too well how to function around the slightly numb edges of my core.
My mom was one of the great non-huggers of all times. And there is no family homestead. Having said that, all I want heading into this chilly early fall weekend is to walk down the sidewalk to home, have mom open the door, open her arms wide, and hold me close, and say, "Welcome back. You never, ever have to leave again."
Leave it to the anonymity of a public computer area to write one of the hardest things I've ever written here. I am crying. I am thankful for libraries.
