I’ve been quiet lately.
There aren’t so many keystrokes being tapped by fingers, not a flow of my writer voice, unstoppable, the way she likes to be, moving through me.
There’s too much other noise. Fear is loud, man. So loud.
What will happen if…
What am I going to do about…
Will I have to…
What does it say about me that…
It’s all-encompassing, those questions, and their endless made-up answers:
Loss. Collapse. All for nothing. Failure.
Who am I, if I am my struggles?
Finally I remembered the most important thing. Not only are the made-up answers untrue, but the questions are too. There’s a lake of truth within me (this is what I call my intuition/inner self, capital-T-Truth, gut: Truth Lake), and if I visit there I will know what I need to know, rather than guess what doesn’t need guessed.
Finally I got quiet in the right way. Not because I was too inundated with the noise, but to give myself a path away from it.
I sat, eyes closed, in the center of my living room floor, put a hand over my heart and the other over my navel. I took some gentle breaths, and I moved my consciousness toward the lake which I find in the space between where my hands were, at my core. Within, within, within. There she is. Let’s step into the water. Let’s swim in Truth.
Who am I? Truth whispered.
Who am I, not only if I’m not my fears, but not the rest of it, either? Who am I if I’m not the mother, the sister, the friend, the daughter. The stylist, the writer, the lover of words and things with story. Who am I if not the girl who belongs in Portland, who lives in this house, who loves neighborhood walks and gardens and farmers markets? Who grew up in fields, beside creeks, under trees? The alchemist of emotion, perspective, meaning? The seeker of peace and a slow pace, of tiny magic, of depth?
This is the only question that matters: Who am I, if not this? My eyes opened and I looked around, seeing differently.
Who am I, if not this?
How do you answer such a question? Still listening, I heard,
With life.