The leaves are all manner of colors, on their way down. It is mid-November, mid-day, cloudy and chilly. Rain is predicted for this afternoon and tomorrow. I am home, a brief respite in the midst of a whirlwind of travel since late August: a North Carolina retreat, then San Francisco, then Montana, Connecticut and Massachusetts, home to pack for Paris and just past, a weekend at the beach. I'll head back to Chapel Hill, North Carolina this week before Thanksgiving next week and a trip to Tennessee, then to New Hampshire before Christmas, back to Tennessee during Christmas, and Lake Tahoe for an extended writing retreat just after. Next year, Alaska and Ireland are tentatively planned.
I list all this in a bit of wonderment, as I'm not a traveler, really, am content at home, writing, gardening, baking, roasting coffee, reading, writing some more. I used to be but am no longer what I would consider a public person. I used to think that my work was "out there", contributing in large rather administrative sorts of ways, and I guess it was. I have a left a trail of modest accomplishment, and now. . .well, now, I am in what some would call "liminal space." It is a place of diffuse and patient waiting, both emergence and integration. It is not a space of fanfare, or title or salary or prestige.
My hands in the soil, I am home. My hands in the bread dough, I am connected. It has taken years of withdrawal from the public sphere for this to be so. The voices still haunt me; the voices that demand production, accountability, contribution in narrow bands. Perhaps it is the steely Presbyterianism on which I cut my theological teeth. Perhaps it is being the oldest child. Perhaps it is a belief in the responsibility of one to whom much has been given. Perhaps all of the above.
It has taken years for the voices to fade, those strident voices that remind me of my obligations. My determination, however faltering, is to find the place, the space, where the truth of my life flowers of its own abundance. I want to give, to act, out of the overflow that naturally occurs within gratitude, within connectedness. I'm getting there. I have increasing moments of presence. At this point, I might be swamped in sadness or guilt in the next moment, but I'm a little better at keeping a bit of distance, a bit of breath in between.
I don't know what this blog will become. I just know that I'm on the edge of some new way of expressing myself. I don't know if I'll give out the address, other than to a few close friends and family. I'm still not sure that this blogging thing isn't just another self-indulgent trick, a way for us to imagine that we are being creative and contributing, when all we are doing is keeping our attention on the minutiae of our personal experience.
So. . .I'll write, and we'll see what happens. This may be my tagline. . .we'll see what happens. . .