In The Flow

What if we are all just a whirl of atoms, little cells of energy colliding and interacting with each other,
Passing by each other - noticed or unnoticed - on our way to places big and small?

What if these cells come together sometimes as a person - as who we are this time around -
Sometimes as animals or plants or clouds or flowers or wind or rain or birds or sunshine?

What if, when we're not who we are anymore, we just get reabsorbed into all that is,
Simply reconfiguring into new forms, new groups of energy coming together in different ways?

What if we can reconfigure even who we are in this life, reinvent how we exist by the choices we make, experience things differently by putting on different colored glasses?

Kinda takes some of the pressure off of the part of me that is so absorbed in the all important work of being.

***

As I drove to pick up Dave from school today, I thought about all this while looking out the window.
I noticed the leaves changing colors - every hue from green to red.

I looked at students crossing the street near the University of Cincinnati and thought,

There goes a bunch of cells,
And there a bundle of energy.

Look at that sweet couple holding hands...
I wonder how their chemistry collided the first time they noticed each other.

Even the turkey driving way too close behind me on the freeway made me ask,
I wonder what his journey is all about in this life.

***

I just can't look at things the same way anymore,
Not after knowing, loving and losing Tikva.
Not after learning to connect with her in a different way.
Not after realizing that she is still so close to me,
Even if she is so far away from the physical space she used to inhabit when her cells came together as Tikva my baby.

I just can't see it anymore as just what is in front of me.
It's impossible for me not to see it all as part of something bigger.

Something shifted in me recently.
I can tell you exactly when it happened, though I can't really explain why it happened when it happened.

I was in the Hudson Valley of New York, a solo weekend without Dave or Dahlia,
There to celebrate the wedding of one of my oldest and dearest friends.

I was nervous about going, about traveling with colitis,
About sharing a room with a bunch of other people,
Being out of my routine for a few days.

And I was excited too.

I'd had a challenging month leading up to the trip,
Tested to my limits by my physical body, by all the changes of moving and settling in.
Frustrated to be searching for work I didn't love doing anymore,
Fearful that I would have to settle for something much less than perfect.

One night with Dave, I started bawling and screaming at the Universe,
I am so tired of being sick! I am so over this! I feel awful! It sucks to be in my body right now. I want to be well... now!

Something about that scream cracked something in me - and I think the Universe cracked open just a tiny bit to hear me.
It was as if I had to get to that place of absolute and total scream in order to have it heard, received, and to get a response from Life.

And a tiny shift began in me, and I just waited and allowed.

Then a few weeks later I found myself in this beautiful part of New York State
And I woke up early on Saturday morning and went down to the kitchen and ate a few fresh locally grown organic berries
And wandered upstairs to where people were doing yoga.
And I bent forward into downward dog and stretched and folded and breathed aaaaahhhhh...

And that's when I felt it.
In that exact moment, I knew everything would be okay.
I just knew.
Not because anything different was happening down in my colon to prove it.
I just knew in that moment that I was already healing, it was already healing and would continue to.

I ate the most amazing food that weekend.
Organic, local, fresh vegetables and fruits, much of it raw and fresh and juicy.
I felt completely nourished - literally and in my soul.
Love was in the air, there with my oldest San Francisco friends.
I sat outside breathing the cleanest air imaginable and felt great,
And so did my body.

And I brought that sensation home with me, deep within me where it had screamed to come out weeks before, where it had been born out of that crack while doing yoga in New York that Saturday morning...
And it's still there, and it's growing.

***

Do you ever have those moments when you are just in the flow of life and it is in synch with you?

I am a big fan of the idea that the one thing we are completely in charge of is how we choose to experience our lives.
As sweet Amy says, Attitude is only everything.

Lately I feel like I've been making a lot of choices, as if I am playing a Choose Your Own Adventure game.
I feel like this time, this place - these four years in Cincinnati - is a blank slate for me.
I have no history here, no past here, no work experience here, no reputation here, no nothing here except what I create.
It's as if I've been given this new opportunity to completely create what I want to be, do, experience.
Yesterday I had a job interview at one of the city's museums - a job I totally could have gotten if I'd wanted it - and I realized,
Wow, if I wanted to reinvent myself as a member of the art world, I totally could! I really can be anything I want to be here.

I've realized that I don't have to do work I no longer love.
I've realized that I can work in the medical field even before becoming a nurse.
I've realized that this is the work I am meant to do, and there is no reason to settle for anything less.
I've realized that when I walk into the hospital for interviews, I feel Tikva so close to me, encouraging me, proud of me, with me.
I've realized that when I'm in the flow, things work out as big and beautiful as I am capable of imagining them.

I am choosing to do work I love, work with meaning... and the opportunities are responding by presenting themselves in abundance.
I am choosing to make friends and connect genuinely with new people here... and these new friends are not only responsive but so deeply welcoming and forthcoming.
I am choosing to go to yoga class to nurture my body... and each time I go, I make a new friend without even trying.
I am choosing to make nourishing food from scratch each night for my sweet family... that feels really good.
I am choosing to relish the sweet joy of sitting with Dahlia as she does her first homework assignments for kindergarten, totally amazed at the way her mind is exploding with learning.
I am choosing to fill our house with plants to nurture and love and grow.

I am choosing to feel good in my body... and my body is responding with profound and complete healing on a cellular level.
I am choosing to feel the excitement of what it will be like to be pregnant again, to carry our next child inside, to bring another member of our family to life for that child's own unfolding journey.

It feels good.