Lost in the archives

February 26, 2010

Somewhere under the snow covered ice a silent spring is ready to begin the season’s thaw. Sitka seems to know this. He feels life awakening as we walk on frozen water. Rebirth is both literal and figurative. Today, I am 53 years old. At this very moment, I am flying straight north over the Rocky Mountains to a wedding in Seattle. As my dear friend embarks on a new journey, in a new life, with a new man, in a new country, I know a new journey awaits me. Like the spring I am emerging, starting anew. I am leaving a career of the last 30 years behind. Something under the ice is giving way. There is no clear direction just a yearning to be re-emerge from the winter and grow wings.

Although I feel the stirring of newness, I am ready and willing to just be… be still, be quiet, be aware and be able to listen to a whisper that started more than a winter ago, I don’t know exactly when, but this whisper is acquiring a voice, sweet and clear. My practice of presence is the only tool I have to really hear this voice. My previous lives have always had me orchestrating every note–a mad conductor thriving in the cacophony. Now the notes are sweet and simple. I will follow the tune and listen to where the melody takes me.

The change before me gained new clarity the day before my fifty-third birthday. My a-ha –I need to be a human being, rather than a human doing. I am not always, in fact rarely, comfortable in stillness. I even felt guilty–guilty for not taking a bigger responsibility in changing the world. As if the social change agent I have been these past three decades has not been enough. What I know now–today–is that I am enough. I have done more than enough. I have even inspired others to do this work along side me. That inspiration has been the torch that I pass on. It is enough.

It is within reason to be reflective to just be still, to just be for a while. To listen to what the next “big thing” is. What I know for sure is that for my ship to come in, I first must build a dock. This time of a personal sabbatical is for me to know who I am truly meant to be. My teaching life has been one God-given purpose. But now I know there is something else. It is not a clear vision. The only path I can see down is to head back North and settle into the Duluth house. The occasional visits and vacationing weeks are not quite enough to know what we should do with the house–keep it and learn the ways of the hinterland, or sell it and discover warmer environs. I can see basking in the warm summer sun, enjoying the never-ending views and then make like snowbirds to visit friends and family in southern climates.

This summer we will pack up the remnants of Gerard’s previous life and only the most poignant possessions from these past four years together. We have collected two cats and a dog, a jewelry shop, more books and a host of memories of living on the river. The price for the views of the St. Croix, at this present moment, is continued teaching. I have loved this vocation, but it has evolved into a creature that takes from my soul more than I am willing to give. Gerard hearing me strum my guitar for the first time, asked me why I no longer play. What came tumbling from my lips is that it takes time and commitment to practice and during the school year I don’t have that kind of time to waste… Waste? That one little word was a huge moment of revelation. Last year, I would come home from school to sit behind my computer and work on reports until I dropped into bed. My work world was a passion yes, but for me to consider the passion I felt for producing notes on strings a waste definitively told me I was out of balance.

This summer, I can rise each morning and listen to the rhythms of my life. I can sleep. I can read. I can garden. I can be still and just be with the stirrings in my soul.