The masks we wear

Reading this morning about that inner voice that always seems to be chattering away, I find myself thinking about the masks we wear, the ones that hide us even from ourselves.  We read about bad behaviors, and immediately ascribe them to others, never acknowledging that we ourselves are guilty.  We judge others, never realizing that we can only recognize their faults because we've seen them in ourselves.

It seems to me that whenever we find we are congratulating ourselves for good behavior, there's probably some masking going on.  The more serene and peaceful those masks appear to be, the more likely it seems that there's something dark and worrisome churning underneath...

Move Within

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.

Don't try to see through the distances.

That's not for human beings. Move within,

but don't move the way fear makes you move.

-- Rumi

Missing connections

I spent the last two days up in the San Juan Islands, looking for peace in which to write.  But I got more peace than I bargained for: a broken phone cable below the Sound on Tuesday had taken out all long distance services, most cell services, and disabled the 911 system. Internet services, email, credit card services -- everything that requires some long distance connection was pretty much inoperative.

I met with the assistant fire chief of Shaw Island, who is also in charge of emergency medical services on the island, and he expressed his particular concern for all the elderly residents whose health is less than optimal.  He had a team of people regularly checking on them, but if they should need major medical assistance it would definitely be slower to arrive than usual.  Fortunately they found a workaround to make 911 functional sometime yesterday afternoon.

I've taken breaks from communications in the past, but always consciously.  To find myself unexpectedly incommunicado, however, was surprisingly disturbing -- perhaps because I'm in the middle of several projects that require frequent communication with the outside world, but I suspect it's more than that.

I couldn't reassure my husband of my safe arrival, nor could I console a daughter after a difficult day at work.  I couldn't schedule two impending work assignments, and had no way of knowing if my dear friend Linda in the Philippines had survived the horrific typhoon that attacked those islands. (I now know she's okay, thank heaven.)

So, in the end, I came home.  I caved.  And now I find myself wondering: why are we not more aware of this outage?  Is it not being publicized because unscrupulous persons could take advantage of the situation?  Why is it taking so long to repair?  And what would life be like if such outages were more widespread?  A disturbing thought...

The allure of the familiar

At the end of the day,
whatever its adventures,
there is something in me
that longs to return
to the old familiar barn,
to sup at the trough, bed down in the hay
and fall asleep to the gentle sounds
that have ushered me into dreams
for all these many years:
the wind in the trees,
the creaking of the rafters,
the gentle huff of breath
from those who sleep nearby.

Temptation

I am the road
you did not take
because you were not sure
exactly where I'd go
or if you had
the traction you would need
to back out when the going
got too rough.

Yet still,
whenever you drive by,
you look at me and wonder...

Feed upon the light

"There is only one fault; only one:

our inability to feed upon the light."

-- Simone Weil

Saying goodbye

Over the course of a lifetime we say goodbye to all sorts of things: people and places, homes and jobs, cherished possessions, hopes, dreams, and possibilities ... And always it seems that however ready we may be to move on, some part of us hates the act of leaving.

I spent this last week with a family of people who were saying goodbye to the land that formed their history, and I watched as each in his or her own way made peace with what needed to be left behind.

Over time, I think, we all learn to be thankful for the blessings that come, not only from the past, but in the process of change: the love shared, the lessons learned, the paths not taken, the gifts that have a way of waiting, just around the bend. But that moment of goodbye is rarely easy...