Following the seasons

 I've been thinking a lot about what makes me feel good - and what doesn't. And this made me think of tomatoes.

In the summer, a tomato from the farmers market or from my small garden is heaven in a bite: the sweetness and depth of flavor is remarkable, the kind of thing that makes you want to call a friend and say "YOU HAVE GOT TO TRY THIS!"

And a winter tomato tastes like wet cardboard and sadness. It has just enough almost-tomato flavor to make me try again, but every bite is the same, and none of it is good.

In a modern life, it seem that we've totally lost touch with our fresh tomatoes, and everything surrounding them. City folks like me don't follow the seasons with our food, and often not even with our behavior: we spend time in air conditioning and heated homes (both of which have huge up-sides, of course!) and we eat strawberries in winter and apples in summer, and it seems to me that when we live like this everything feels just a bit flatter. Winter tomatoes are flat.

I'm trying to change this in my life.

I have a farmers market just blocks from my home (I know, how lucky am I?!) and I try to go every Sunday. Strolling the stalls, I see old and new friends, get to pet lots of random dogs, and listen to buskers playing quite a selection of music. There are food trucks and food tents, I really think that it's quite lovely, and part of the ritual of my week. But most of all right now, I'm noticing how when I shop that way, I find myself so much more in tune with the seasons.

This week the dahlias were wilted and had some spots; dried statice and cabbage flowers had taken their places. (I'm not going to lie: I mourned that!) I picked up bunches of leeks, carrots, and lacinto kale (I finally figured out one kind of kale that I don't despise). Potatoes, parsnips, radishes, apples filled the stands. Onions, garlic, and mushrooms were in abundance. And jarred items - kiwi jam, kombucha, and apple cider - were all there for the taking. I'm trying to map my eating to this kind of seasonality this year, and I don't know if it's my imagination but I really do think that the potatoes taste better, the carrots sweeter and crunchier.

But it's not just food, it's all of it.

As a teacher, I find that my work year is much more in tune with the seasons, even though we're indoors. "New Year" is autumn, just as in the pagan calendar. I love the ritual of freshening up office supplies, setting my classroom in order, and making plans to have creative, interesting lessons that will make the year sweeter for me and for my kids. September is the mad rush of trying to get to know the students, rolling out new curricula; October is all about finding our groove and getting work done; November is all about applying lessons and really getting down to business. December is about diving in - but then it's about raising our heads to catch our breath, sprinting out of the building, and enjoying a two week break.

January may be New Year's again. Refreshed, we're ready to dive back in, to close out the semester strong. And then, just when we're feeling tired, we get two things: a new quarter with a fresh start, and then a week of break. The we power through March and April to the AP exams, and then in late May and June we wind down with our college essay and the dreams of a new life.

And then? And then we get summer. Travel, oceans, suntans, festivals, concerts, picnics.

Having an arc to my year in this way is useful to me, and I find it soothing. Just like the tomatoes, when I try to rush in the wrong season - in September if I dive in too fast, we don't build community, and then they don't learn as well! - then I don't do well; in winter we really go deep into the material, and that feels right, too.

But I want my whole life to be like this, and more.

I want to really live each minute of the seasons, taking the gifts each season - month, week, day - can offer, and enjoying the gifts quite thoroughly.

It's mid-November and daylight savings is in effect, and suddenly it really is quite dark. Instead of complaining about this (there is so much complaining about this!), I don't want to fight it, I want to embrace it. In this season of darkness, I want:

- candles

- reading

- warm stews and soups (vegetarian for me, please!); butternut squash lasagna; roasted Brussels sprouts; lentil stew; vegetable soup with kale and carrots and potatoes; mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy

- oodles of hot drinks

Today I had fun grabbing my bright puffy coat, my waterproof (but cute!) lace up boots, and putting on my wool hat with a pompom and my matching thin gloves, and walking around the farmers market with my bag in the cold air, perfectly content because of my clothing. The cool air felt good in my lungs; my legs appreciated the stretch. Earlier, I walked through Lincoln Park and found myself enjoying a walk on the actual beach, admiring the shells and different seaweeds washed up in the strong autumn tides. (I saw a particularly beautiful chiton, bright blue inside; and a perfect snail shell; and so many lovely stones mixed in with the kelp and sea lettuce and other seaweeds I can't yet name.) When at home, I read for a while; I journaled for a while. I put my laundry away, and washed my sheets (and what is yummier than fresh clean sheets and a feather comforter on a cold night?). Back in the park, I found pinecones and bright leaves and a couple small cedar branches, and I brought them home and arranged candles in tin around them, and took satisfaction in bringing their autumn color and scents into my home.

On Friday night I had some friends over, and I made a vegetarian chili that included green chilies that I purchased at last week's farmers market and then roasted; it also had pumpkin in it. Lighting candles and setting the table in an autumn color palette was soothing to me; nurturing my friends on a cold night with warm food and a cozy home felt blissful.

This season I am nesting by journaling, spending more time at home being an introvert than I do in summer. I'm reading more. Writing more. Observing more. I'm taking a yoga class at a studio and enjoying doing it in community, instead of in my basement, glad to exercise my body without fighting the elements. It's a perfect fall activity, I think.

Instead of cursing the early dark, when I noticed the sky turning pink tonight I grabbed my puffy coat etc. and added a travel mug of hot tea ("Yogi Tea for Immune Support" felt right!) and hurried back to Lowman Beach to sit on a log and watch the sun setting. Bundled up, I felt no complaints, and the rich pink of the sky and the sound of the waves was no less beautiful than when I swam there this summer or lounged there with a book in a sundress or a bathing suit on a hot day. I felt fully present, so grateful that the November air was clean and fresh, and that the beach offered its gifts.

I'm already preparing for the winter season right around the corner, though I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself. I'm reading pie recipes for Thanksgiving, and looking up all of the festivals and activities that I enjoy in winter. I don't want to miss the Christmas Ships, or the Pathway of Lights, or our local Night Markets. I've got tickets for a play in hand, and hope to find another. One friend's annual party in December is already on the calendar, and I've already invited friends to a "Sparkle" party and included "the kids" (who are mostly turning 20 this year!) because they'll enjoy gathering, too.

On Thanksgiving morning, the yoga studio is offering a "gratitude" practice. While I will no doubt be running around like mad in my kitchen, wishing I'd done more the night before, I'm going. Reveling in gratitude is a part of Thanksgiving, and I can't wait. And speaking of gratitude: I've already pulled out the Thanksgiving Journal. When Tessa was little I read about this practice of keeping a book where all of one's Thanksgiving guests write in it when they gather on Thanksgiving and I started it at least 15 years ago. The book has now watched cousins fall in love, get married; have children; it's weathered my divorce and the new life that came afterwards. It's seen grandparents pass, and it's seen babies being born. It's seen big Thanksgiving parties of 22, and a tiny one of just 3 for Covid. My regular Thanksgiving crew reminds me about it - they not only want to write in it, but going back and reading years gone by is a treasured tradition.

***

I know I'm rambling, so let me try to say what I came to say.

I want a good life, where I relish the gifts put before me. I don't want to curse the darkness, because cursing it will not bring the light. I want to embrace it all: the light, the darkness; the tomatoes, the butternut squash. I want to remember to get cozy in my home with fuzzy socks and favorite sweaters and a journal or a book, and I want to remember to strip down to only the lightest clothes and walk along the edges of the waves in the sunshine. I want to sleep under starry skies in summer, looking up and gasping at their beauty through tired eyes; and I want to light candles and smile at the warm light in my home in winter as warm scents come from my kitchen and friends come to the door. I want to look for signs of spring - those bright crocuses bring such joy! - but I also want to marvel at the lacy patterns of the trees, the beauty of hoarfrost, the steadfast water fowl who spend the winter without apparent regret, swimming in the Sound. I want to participate in the lighting of lights - candles, Christmas trees - and I want to be filled with gratitude that I am here to see them.

I don't want to fight the darkness, I want to find the beauty in it. I don't want to long for tomatoes, strawberries, and peaches, I want to savor pumpkin curry and pomegranate kale and cranberry bread.

I want to embrace the seasons of the year, and of my life.

Right now, my hair is thinner and grayer than it was. My belly is a different shape. My eyes have crinkles in the corners. I am not a young woman; this is not the spring of my life. But it seems to me, there is so much beauty at this phase of life, too.

Instead of taut skin, I have a stronger sense of self worth.

Instead of glossy, dark hair, I have the knowledge that I can overcome.

Instead of a sad marriage, I have freedom.

Instead of a baby in my arms, I have a daughter who is exploring her dreams at college and comes home to me at breaks.

Instead of learning a path, I have a steady career that feels solid.

Instead of building a home, I have a home that is safe, warm, and filled with comforts.

Much like in my youth, I'm still filled with dreams, hopes, and desires. But unlike in my youth, I'm not panicking that I haven't fulfilled them yet. I know that some will happen, and some might not, but that I am okay - no, better than okay! - either way.

Just as the day has light and dark, and the light and dark return right on schedule; just as the seasons surely rotate, the leaves bursting forth, shimmying in the breeze, bursting with color, then dropping to reveal the trees' architecture... my life has these patterns, too. I refuse to say that one season is worse, or better; they're just all so different, and each relies on the other. It's autumn, and I am in autumn, too. But this is the season for gratitude, and I am grateful.

I have had summers that hurt; I have had springs that birthed disease and divorce. Yes, some winters are weary (the Covid isolation of winter 2021 was ROUGH); but not all of them are. Some are filled with Christmas parties and solstice celebrations and snowshoeing and skiing and dinner parties and game nights and weekend getaways and such good books. Some are filled with success at work, and joyful breaks. I became a mother in winter - what is more lovely than that?

I'm a little slower this late autumn than I was in summer - no rushing about from train to train in Italy; no jumping from festival to festival or concert to concert. But the slowness suits me, too. It's the season for it. I spent an hour in a bookstore yesterday, a gift to myself.

I am skipping the fresh tomatoes for now, because I don't like soggy cardboard. And I'm embracing the dark, because I love lighting candles in the dark, and because a starry winter night is so gorgeous, and because I do love to see the Christmas lights against a dark sky. And I'm embracing every kind of potato, and all of the pies (but especially pumpkin).

And here I am, writing again, when all summer I struggled to do so, and that feels right, too. (Maybe I'll even go back and edit this, because boy it took me a long time to get to my point! :-) ).

I want to leave by the seasons, all of their light and dark, all of their sweet and savory. I refuse to dread the darkness, when I know that the darkness also brings the gift of snow days and apple cider and the smell of a Christmas tree in my house. There is so much to look forward to - and I'm looking forward to it! And I refuse to dread the autumn of my life, because it has gifts, too, and because the brightness of the leaves is no less knowing that they will fall, and because the winter around the corner has gifts to reveal, too.

And now: off to make a late dinner. Tonight it's mashed potatoes, mushroom gravy, and roasted broccoli. Yum. Nothing to be sad about there - comfort food at it's finest!

The mother of invention

 The world is passing by in a blur, and I finally have time to sit and just observe it.

Tessa graduated high school, and got to end the horrible COVID year with a lovely round of proms, graduation ceremony and parties, a healthy new relationship with a boy who seems to appreciate her as much as she appreciates him. Much to both of our surprise, in late May she decided that community college wasn't her path after all, and she applied to and was admitted to CWU.

My head is still spinning, but it's a good spin.

There is so much I want to say here, and perhaps I'll come back to it, but the sum of it is this: she is reinventing herself, and I am reinventing myself, and I see with such clarity that we are at some new tipping point where nothing will ever be the same (this is old news) but that we both get to shape ourselves with intentionality and joy; we both get to decide who we will be.

I'm giddy, fearful, contemplative, confused, and certain.

Mostly, certain.

When I completed the most heinous parts of cancer treatment, shortly after the big rounds of surgery, chemo, and radiation were finished, I was assigned a new doctor (Dr. Zucker at Swedish) whose job it was to oversee my return to wellness. He wasn't there to help me cure cancer; he was there to help my body and mind to overcome the treatment and find a new way to health. I was so on fire with being alive - was it possible that I had truly made it through? - that I was filled with energy, hope, and intentionality for my life. Dr. Zucker noticed this, and gave me some of the best advice I've ever received. He told me that my energy could inspire me to do great things, but that over time, that energy would fade as life resumed some new normal and the day to day took over again. He told me that the most important thing I could do was to, with great intention, create new habits that would last long after the surge of good intentions and energy had passed.

I know that I'm in another place like that again. Tessa has crossed the line from childhood into young adulthood, and I have crossed from centering my day to day life around her needs into...

What? Something new, somethin unknown, something exciting and terrifying in equal measure.

It's time to reinvent myself. I have no choice in this, really: whether I am intentional and make new choices about my life that please me and give me new purpose or not, there is no way my life can stay the same. I will no longer come home to a daughter needing a ride somewhere, or making messes in the kitchen, or sitting on the other end of the sofa to laugh at a movie with me. My house will not be filled with a handful of hungry teenagers excited for my snacks. Game nights will no longer be teens versus adults. Dinner will not be a negotiation. It is not my job to coach her to do her homework, or to stay awake until she gets home, or to insist that she put away her laundry so I can get the baskets back.

What is passed is in the past, and if I were to long for it to stay I would have no hope of forcing it... but I don't want to go backwards at all. I want to find the joy and excitement and energy of this moment, for her as well as for myself.

I have no role models for this. My parents did not show me this path: they fought my leaving tooth and nail, going so far as to say "so you think you're too good for us?" when I went to college, and again when I moved out. They demanded that I call them every day for extended conversations, and that I visit multiple times a week. They told me that if I moved far away I'd be unhappy and unsuccessful; they kept the tether short, and when I chewed on it, desperate to release myself, they found new ways to tether me. Until, of course, they couldn't tether me anymore at all, and I broke free with a vengeance, vowing to never be tethered to them again. No, that's not what I want in my parenting, not at all, and so I can't look to my past to determine how to behave in my future.

***

I re-read The Alchemist by Paolo Coehlo yesterday. I'm on my personal journey, and I am so, so sure that I must do what I must do. I am equally sure that Tessa is on her personal journey, and that the fates are conspiring to help us.

I've been moving my body more (as a matter of fact, today it's sore from moving so much!), bonding with Chance and feeling at peace in my skin as I regain my strength and clarity.

I've been reading.

I've been outdoors, on beaches and lakes and paddle boards and trails.

I've been doing projects around the house.

I've been cooking (and eaten more vegetables in a couple of weeks than I did in the last six months).

And now, it's time to write.

My personal journey is to write, to tell the stories that have been welling up inside me and long to splash over the edges like a joyful waterfall. I was put on this planet to write, and I've been writing my whole life, and now is the time.

My personal journey is also to find the love I've been missing, and to heal the old wounds. I need to do the work... but even more than that, I need to believe that I am worthy, and that the Universe wants this for me.

It's that simple. It's time to live the life I've imagined, and to hold nothing back.

***

My daughter is learning to fly, and now that I am focused more on myself as she is out of my reach at college this fall, it's time for me to soar, too.

***

I think it's called the mother of invention because it is, indeed, a mother's necessity to reinvent herself, over and over. Our bodies reinvent first; then our lives are upended with our tiny babies; then we grow into our roles as they shift through different phases of our children's growth; and then, perhaps the biggest change of all, our children launch and we get to reinvent ourselves again. 

Not everyone does this well - some live in the past; some chase their children into the future. I love my daughter with my whole being, so I can understand these responses. But what I want for her is to be free to soar, knowing that no amount of time or space can separate us, and that I am always her soft place to land. What I want for myself is to live the life that is meant for me. And what I want for both of us is for me to model to her a true, authentic life so that she doesn't have to find her way on her own. I want to offer her a magical combination of support and freedom; I want to show her what I am made of so that she will know that she is made of that stuff, too.

What a time to be alive. Never, ever do I forget that I nearly lost it all, and that 16 years ago when I got that cancer diagnosis I had many reasons to believe that I'd never get the chance to experience a daughter going to college. Never, ever do I forget how hopeless and lost and uncertain of my future I felt when I got divorced, and how uncertain of my financial future and my ability to support myself I was.

But here I am. Alive. Independent. Filled with hope.

To reinvent myself again is a gift and a joy, despite my frequent anxiety, and somehow I know that this is a part of my personal journey, and that the best is right around the corner, if I will only do what my heart tells me to do.

New Ideas

 I love the rituals of the seasons. I throw myself into pumpkins and cinnamon and knee high brown boots and orange scarves in the fall; the day after Thanksgiving I wrap my rooms in garlands and lights and ornaments and nutcrackers. In the summer I love to wear big floppy hats and gauzy swim cover ups and flip flops while I picnic on a beach.

And in the week after Christmas, I dream, I vision, I plot, I ponder.

This year, the heavy emphasis is on plot. I'm writing 1000 words a day. I've already started, because the stories that were inside me when I was born have been developing my whole life, and at long last, I'm not afraid to tell them. I'm not afraid of the critics, I'm not afraid that I'm stupid, I'm not afraid that what I say won't be read by anyone.

I'm not afraid.

This year, I'm writing my book. I'm on my way, sure of it, grateful. The words are spilling out of me. I love my characters, even my antagonist, who I once thought only filled with hate.

I am becoming (thanks, Michelle Obama) the person I was always supposed to be. At 51, it's better late than never, but I feel a young woman's excitement. I'm standing up a little taller, telling my friends, giggling and giddy. I'm a writer. Now I'm a writer for real, because I'm writing. I cannot control the future and I cannot force a publisher to like what I say, but I know this: I'm writing it anyway. I am convinced that I have something to say that the world needs to hear, and that the world will want to share. That is enough.

***

One thing that I am not doing this year is plotting my weight, my wardrobe, my clothing size. I have no plans to tone my arms, to reduce my belly fat, or to eat ten fruits and vegetables daily. I am not re-joining Weight Watchers (though I'd be lying if I said I hadn't considered it). I am not stepping on the scale and measuring my worth by what that number tells me.

Is this because I've achieved perfection? Is this because my waist is trim, my buttocks and thighs smooth, my arms strong?

No.

This is because I have spent too much time in my life worrying about how I looked, and feeling like I wasn't good enough. I've hidden behind drab clothing when I was bigger, and I've strutted like a peacock (but not a peahen) when I was smaller, but I have felt judged, for better or for worse, by my weight, and I'm done with that.

I like who I am becoming, and my body has carried me this far. It has carried me over mountains, and into lakes and oceans; it has birthed a child, it has held lovers. It has stood up to a grizzly, and to an abuser who was threatening his wife and children with a gun and his rage. It has fought cancer, and cancer treatment, and anaphylaxis, and surgeries gone wrong. It is covered with scars that are ugly yet beautiful. Ugly because they replaced something smooth and clean with ragged and jagged; insanely beautiful because they are marks of my survival.

So this year, for new year's, I vow to love my body. I will continue trying to take care of it - I just got back from a wonderful four mile walk with Chance - because I really do feel better when I eat fruits and veggies, and because when I get outside my soul breathes easier, and because I want to live a long life. But I am not convinced that trying to twist my body into a shape that doesn't quite work, and requires constant vigilance, is right for me.

My energy is going to be spent on loving myself, not chastising myself. This is new.

I am not conventionally beautiful. I was not granted supermodel looks through the genetic lottery; I suppose in that way I am quite ordinary.

But I know how to be beautiful.

I am beautiful when I shriek as I jump into an alpine lake, eyes lit up with excitement and the thrill. I'm beautiful when I help a student to work through a problem, to see themself as whole and good. I'm beautiful when I tell the truth. And sometimes, I'm beautiful when I'm paddle boarding, or when I wear a particular dress and heels.

When I'm living my best life, my eyes light up and shine, and some see me as beautiful because they long for the light.

When I'm tugging at my sweater, holding my belly in, and marking down every bite, I'm not beautiful, and I'm not whole, and it takes so much damn energy that I forget how to focus on the things that matter.

***

This year, I am writing a book, and I am focusing all my energy on the ideas I'm trying to express, and on being the writer that I have always been. I accept my body, and I will treat it well, but this is not a year to focus on a marathon or a goal weight. I will walk, or run. I will do yoga, or paddle board, or hike, or snowshoe. I will eat salads, but also pasta.

This is my way of saying that I'm worth it.

This is my declaration to myself that I do not have to change in order to be worthy. I do not have to become something new, or turn everything upside down or inside out in order to be good.

I'm good.

My sheets are in the wash, the fridge is full of good vegetarian food (because we've been playing at vegetarian for a few months, having meat only rarely, and it actually feels great). I have a stack of books to read. I canceled the Hallmark Movies Now subscription, because it was a good way to rest at the beginning of break, but I'm done with it now.

2020 was hard, but it wasn't all bad for me. I slowed down enough to remember some things I really care about. I fell in love with my home all over again. I got unexpected time with Tessa. I missed my friends, but I also connected with them. I wrote.

I have been hoping to fall in love for years now, and it hasn't happened at all the way I'd hoped it would: I am quite, quite single. But now it seems right that it should be so. There is a thing I haven't done, because I told myself I wasn't good enough, and "not good enough" is not good partner material (how I would loathe a relationship with a man who walked through the world believing that about himself).

This year, I'm falling back in love with myself. Not with caveats, but with tenderness.

I'm a writer. I have something to say. I'm not afraid of putting my stories out there, because I know they have worth. I know I have worth. I'm not afraid to pursue my dreams, and when success comes, I won't be afraid of it. When someone says that I am a late bloomer, I will smile at them and shake my head "no" because I've blossomed many times before; this is just a new kind of bloom. Some will think that this is sudden, but not those who have really known me. I've been working on this my whole life, in one way or another, turning the words over in my head, on scraps of paper, on pixels. The only difference now is that I'm ready.

Welcome, 2021. I've been waiting for you, and I'm ready. Happy new year!

Fear

I've always loved the Anais Nin quote:

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“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

Today, I'm looking at it differently. I think this quote is about how fear controls us.

Being the eternal optimist, I've always viewed this quote as the hopeful possibility of the future: the potential that lies within all of us. But today, I'm thinking about how the flip side of that possibility is how we let fear become our driving factor, and how we can choose fear because the fear is more comfortable - painful that it may be - than the risk of stepping outside of fear. It occurs to me with some shock that we can choose the comfort of our fear. The comfort of our fear? Isn't fear uncomfortable? Isn't fear the enemy?

Maybe. But we can grow comfortable with the monster we know, and more afraid of the monster that we don't. We can choose to stay where we are because the fear we know is manageable in some way, and we embrace how scared we are because we're used to it.

I'm experiencing this in three new ways right now:

1) I have been really scared to tell my family story in a meaningful way. While I am crystal clear on my position around my family's Nazi past, I had chosen to stay small with it. I knew that my story was worth telling, but I also feared the repercussions of telling it. I was choosing to stay small. Well, last week I chose to tell it as boldly as I knew how, and I burst through that fear.

2) I have wanted to be a writer ever since I was a little girl, and I have feared that I wasn't good enough or that only "fancy people" could be writers and I was too ordinary or weird and that I could never be a real writer. But this year, I vowed that despite my weirdness or my ordinariness, I'd put myself out there and share what I had to say in an intentional way, and that I could accept if people loved it or hated it, but I had to try anyway.

3) I have a beloved friendship that has spanned many years, but I haven't established healthy boundaries; when things have been uncomfortable, I've chosen to stay quiet. Recently, I set a firm boundary with this friend - and my fears came true. They (I'm not going to reveal their gender as part of anonymity) were angry, hurt, and completely withdrew from me. Two things instantly became clear to me: 1) my fears were founded, and that is why I had not established and maintained healthy boundaries; and 2) I am not who I was, and I am okay despite my friend's reaction.

In all three cases, I've been living smaller than I should have been.

I'm not surprised that in the space of a week all of these things happened. I think that I'm ready, and that I've been setting myself up for growth for a long time, and now the seeds that I've planted are growing.

I grew up in fear that if my parents knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me. It was made clear to me that when I stepped outside of family traditions (gender roles, established patterns, political and religious views, etc.) that I was deviant, unacceptable, mistaken, or just plain stupid. While I've been battling that my whole life (the confines never fit me properly, and I struggled against them), it wasn't until three years ago when my father laid it all out for me that I knew that the line had been crossed - that I did indeed have a boundary, and I'd just discovered it. It's funny that he rejected me, but that was the first time I felt free to say "No."

In the three years since, I've done plenty of reflecting (and therapy) and reading around boundaries, relationships, and why I have the thought patterns that I do, and where those thought patterns serve me and don't serve me. I think I've grown more in three years than I'd grown in the 47 years that came before.

So now that growth is building within me, and I'm not the person I was before. The growth has come with strength: I am much clearer about what I want, what I can tolerate, and what I cannot tolerate. I'm much more clear on what makes me happy, and who I am and who I wish to be (and the overlap between these two is much bigger than it was three years ago).

I made a decision to write; I chose to write about my family history. I am strong enough to weather the consequences - if people resonate with my story, or ignore it, it's okay. If my perspective is flawed, I'm willing to listen. If I have wisdom to offer, I'm willing to own it. My fear, which had been holding me back, suddenly seemed small compared to my desire to be my whole self, to share my truth, and to explore the big world to see what was available to me.

I wasn't consciously thinking about my friendship with X. or how that friendship needed to grow with me. The friendship has many beautiful qualities, and I treasure that friendship genuinely. I see the goodness in X. I also am a different size and shape than I was when the friendship started, but in many ways the friendship hasn't changed shape, and so suddenly I am awoken to the realization that I am uncomfortable, so I said, "I'm uncomfortable, and I need to enforce this boundary, which is about me, not you." X. was hurt and insulted. I looked at my heart, my boundary, my intention. I said, "I do not want to hurt or insult you. This is what I need. I still care about you." I don't know what will happen next, but I know that X. has the right to end the friendship, to refuse to honor my boundary, or to accept my boundary. I am not in charge of X.'s decisions, but I'm not afraid of them. I am at peace with me. I hope that X. and I can remain close, but if we can't, I can accept that too, because I can honor myself as much as I honor our friendship, and because I'm not in charge of other peoples' behavior.

I've never thought of myself as a particularly fearful person. At 22 I traveled Europe alone with a backpack and a Eurorail pass, and found that my spirit was adventuresome. I fought the confines of my family's expectations for me, and created a life of my own. I backpack in bear country. I had the courage to get divorced, I had the courage to change careers. I have faced chemo, radiation, and so many surgeries. I thought I wasn't fearful. People have told me for years how brave I am, and I thought I believed them.

But there are layers to people, and my brave exterior hid an interior that was shaking, frightened, and lately I decided that I was sick of it, that it was time to get real. Pretending to be brave, or being brave only some of the time, no longer serves me.

So here I am, with a clarity that I've never felt before.

Buds are beautiful - they are symbols of hope. But I long to burst into full bloom, to explode with color and gorgeous fragrance and the luxurious velvet of petals. I long for the honeybee to pause, to gorge itself with sticky sweet pollen, to rest on me.

I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid that I will not be beautiful enough, that nobody will enjoy my fragrance. I suddenly that bees love all blossoms, and that my destiny was always to blossom, whether I am the kind of flower that people notice with awe, or whether I am a dandelion in the lawn. I don't know yet what my bloom will look like, but I want to know, and I'm willing to try, because the bud is too small and I can't move and it feels tight and painful. If I'm a dandelion, I hope a child clutches me and presents me as a gift to someone loved. If I'm a rose, I hope that a painter captures my elegance for all time. If I'm a wildflower I hope that the breeze caresses me and that the mountain adores me. I don't know what happens next, who I will be.

But I'm not afraid.