Walking Meditation

I first experienced the meditative peace of walking  during the eighteen months I lived with my mother after my father’s death.  My friend Cathleen and I walked the wooded pathways of a nearby park three times a week.  We did it for exercise, but also saw it as a chance to talk freely about our lives.  It deepened our connection, got our hearts pumping,  and cleared our minds; however, it is the solace that came from those walks that has stayed with me ever since. 

Whatcom Falls Park, where we took our walks, is full of ancient evergreen trees.  Its woods are home to ravens, spotted owl, deer, squirrels, and a plethora of wild birds.  We usually took the same route each day, crossing down to the entrance of the park,  and then heading for the duck pond.  Once in a while  I brought bread to feed the ducks, and a large scramble of mallards and their ducklings immediately surrounded the waters in front of me, begging and squawking as bread sailed through the air.  Occasionally,  even a seagull  who had flown up from Bellingham Bay several miles away,  joined in the fun.  After we fed the birds, we’d head down a pathway that led deep into the park, crossing a small bridge over Whatcom Creek to get into a large cathedral of trees that felt like sacred ground to me.

Crossing under that thicket of trees, sunlight spattering the ground, birds calling in the distance — there was nothing that could have offered me  more in terms of assuaging my grief over my father’s death, and the other losses that coincided with it, including the break-up of a long term relationship with my boyfriend.  It was almost as though the trees knew me, knew my sorrows, and offered themselves as living examples of how to endure.  That’s why I love trees — everything from mesquite to saguaro to willow to redwood.  They endure. Barring interference from human beings, most trees will outlive us.  They were here before we were born, and they will likely be standing with their branches touching the sky on the day each one of us dies.  The act of walking in any natural setting — whether a state park,  a mountain trail, or through someplace urban and lovely like the Desert Botanical Gardens here in Phoenix — allows us to reconnect with silence, with God, with the sound of our footsteps and heartbeat, with spirituality, and with the slow grace that accompanies peace. 

Walking in nature is a meditative act.  Nature can truly be a balm for whatever ails us. 

I remember walking through grief.  I remember the way the sky looked through an umbrella of tangled branches.  I remember the sound of the river and coming face-to-face with my ability to continue living, even in the face of a very real death. 

In our society’s quick worship of the automobile, some people have never had the very real pleasure of taking a walk.  Try it.  Go to a local park and take a stroll; hike into the raw beauty of the mesas surrounding your home.  Walk at dawn or by moonlight.  Reconnect with your inner life and find out how healing a walk in nature  can be.

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry 

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New Beginnings

September, for me, is a time of new beginnings. 

As a kid I loved September because the days started to cool, leaves on  maple and oak trees began to change color, the air took on a moist earthy tang, and a new school year began. 

This month I am reflecting on the subject of rest and rejuvenation.  Knowing that my tendency is to overfill my cup in terms of commitments and responsibilities, it seems appropriate to consider the real need to remind myself that just as the ocean ebbs and flows, so should my life.  As human beings, we need rest.  We need down time to care for our weary bodies and minds.  We need peace and quiet to contemplate our spirituality and our place in the world.  We cannot always be crashing like waves onto the shore; we also need to pull back, re-group, and reassess, prior to rushing forward again.

Now that I teach college, September is typically the beginning of a new academic year with all of its attendant flurry and frenzy.  I always have more to do that there are hours in the day; however,  a part of me enjoys the frantic aspect of the preparations, the excitement of meeting new students, and the freshness of the young minds I encounter as another year begins.  The trick is to remember to incorporate time for rest into this new and exciting time.  Even if it is just planning a lunch with a friend allowing yourself time to sit and talk about the detritus of life, or making time to lay in bed with a good book, doing so allows your mind to wander to new places and find sustenance in the process.  We must remember that in order to be able to work and play at our optimum energy and capability, rest and renewal are crucial. Our bodies need time to dream and time to rest. 

This month, let’s take time to breathe in the beauty of life.  Slow down.  Take a nap.  Sit with a cup of green tea and read from a book of poems by Rilke or Langston Hughes or Theodore Roethke.  Sleep on the couch,  snuggled up with the love of  your life.  Admire the lovely fluff of your cat’s tail. Slow down and savor your life.

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry

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Living Proof

Twenty three years ago tonight, I converted to Buddhism.  I was 25 years old.

Up to that point, I had always been fascinated by spirituality.  I was wildly curious about just exactly what I was put on this planet to accomplish.  The idea each person contains a “diamond chalice” (Buddha nature) inside the core of his or her being made sense to me.  Even as a small child, I believed that God was inside of me.  Spirit existed inside my body and my soul, not in some place called “heaven.”  Don’t get me wrong.  I believe heaven exists, just not in the way that most Westerners do.  Heaven isn’t a place.  It is a life condition.  So is hell.  We don’t need to go anywhere to find hell in our world.  All we have to do is turn on the evening news.

The basic tenets of Buddhism — what you do comes back to you – whether thought, word, or deed, made perfect sense to me.  The idea that I was creating my experiences through what I said, thought, and did, meant that if I changed things that were not working, my experience would reflect that change.  And, as I began to chant and learn about Buddhism, I found my way into the source of answers, solace, and peace inside my own life. 

I am the Buddha.  You are the Buddha.  We are all capable of being a Buddha.  A Buddha is (to put it simply) an enlightened human being.  What Shakyamuni taught his disciples during the 50+ years that he expounded on his enlightenment was that we need not seek the truth outside of ourselves.  Each one of us possesses infinite wisdom and the capacity to use it, IF (and that’s a big if) we decide (we still have free will) to use it.

I love the tenets of Buddhism.  I love the capacity it gives its practitioners to overcome hardships and suffering.  I love how it allows me to constantly reflect on my behavior as a human being.  Cause and effect is strict, but also compassionate.  If we do not experience the consequences of our actions, how will we ever learn anything?  I love the fact that Buddhism is a simple philosophy.  It has its complexities, but you needn’t understand them to practice.  You can simply practice with expectation.  It is nice to deepen your knowledge of the precepts, but it is not necessary to do so to obtain benefit.  I remember years ago when I first started to chant in New York City, I knew a man in his mid-forties who had been practicing Buddhism for over a decade.  He was mildly retarded, so the theory behind the practice of Buddhism meant nothing to him.  That being said, he was one of the most joyous human beings I have ever encountered.  He lived his life with such gratitude and gusto.  He felt nothing was impossible for him, and he used his practice to follow his dreams.

My Buddhist practice has been a cherished gift to me all these years.  Every area of my life changed when I encountered Buddhism.  I have met (and parted from) some of the best people I have ever known since I started my practice.  I have been transformed by my friendships and by the people I have lost.  The longer I practice, the more I realize what a gift each moment of life is.  So, I take risks.  I work hard.  I allow myself to love, even though I have been hurt.  I think constantly about the generosity and joy and genuine love that exist in this world, even as wars burn like wildfires on every continent.  I believe in our capacity to change the world, one person at a time.  I am living proof.

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry

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Forgiveness

“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”       The Buddha

Lately I have forgiveness on my mind.  In fact, I keep hearing the lyric to a Don Henley song floating around in my brain.  The song is “The Heart of the Matter.”   It was released on The End of the Innocence album in 1989.  In it, Henley writes

“I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness, forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore…”

I know the reason for my current case of instant replay.  I recently got to a place of forgiveness about a whole plethora of stuff; stuff that has hung like a noose around my neck for months or sometimes years: the bullshit with T; my sadness over M; my anger (for the most part) over my brother’s interactions with my mom.  (That is a whole can of worms they have to untangle).  After having the book sitting on my shelf for six years, I finally read Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping.  His worksheets for handling the forgiveness process are just astonishing.  Energetically I absolutely dumped decades of detritus in a matter of hours.  I simply let it go.  I did the worksheets―and poof―the anger and sadness and heartbreak vanished. 

Tipping’s whole take on things is that everything that happens to us is perfect in every way.  Everything: the crap, the heartbreak, the layers of loss, the joy…all of it (the whole enchilada, so to speak) is perfect exactly as it is.  Nothing about our experiences needs to change except our perception.  Each experience comes into our lives to teach us to love ourselves.  There is nothing but love.  Any experience that causes us pain is there to help us investigate and uncover the ways in which we are not loving and kind toward ourselves.  Our lovers, friends, bosses, and colleagues all exist to show us something about ourselves.  They act as a clear mirror of our inner life.  What we see of ourselves in their presence is meant to help us to better travel through this life, with love and lightness and joy.  We will continue to experience certain sorts of difficulties until we learn the attendant lesson we need to learn.  When we do, we are free to forgive and move on.

Louise Hay’s work on recognizing the way our thoughts impact our bodies has also been forcing me to rethink the way in which I approach my life.  Both of these developments cannot be a coincidence and cannot be anything but a positive sign of current growth.  I am learning something new every day.  Every day begin again.  Every day start fresh.  Do not be encumbered by baggage from the past.

This is the only moment in which to live.

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry

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Book Geek

I am proud to say that I am a book geek. Much like my mother before me, I tend to buy books impulsively (and incessantly).  Since I teach during the academic year, and read approximately 800 student English assignments each session, reading for pleasure has, in the past few years, become a bit of a luxury.  Add to that, I’ve lost my perfect 20/20 eyesight and developed an astigmatism and nearsightedness.  As a result, I have ended up with quite a cornucopia of unread books lining my shelves.  I finally got glasses at the end of last summer, and much to my surprise, started to really enjoying reading again.  The first thing I did was read the 6^th volume of Harry Potter, followed in quick succession by the final volume. 

Being able to read again has been a gift.  And despite my busy schedule, I am finding that I want to turn off the television (the “glass teat,” as Stephen King calls it) and read books, magazines, literary journals, etc., instead.  By doing so, I have more control over what I am taking into my consciousness.  This is something I think is paramount to remaining hopeful and feeling good during these turbulent times.  I also think that most of the decent information about what is going on in the world is coming out in books, since our news media is now owned by a small handful of mega-media conglomerates whose main focus is in disseminating propaganda and fear.  So, my book collection has become quite a source of solace, information, entertainment, and knowledge. (And, I am sure that Amazon.com loves me.)

This summer I have been teaching summer school, so I have mostly opted for froth: Sophie Kinsella’s Remember Me, all three volumes of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire trilogy (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse), as well as her recent novel, The Host.  I’ve read What We Ache For by Oriah Mountain Dreamer; The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch; Standing at the Water’s Edge by Anne Paris; The New Golden Age: The Coming Revolution Against Political Corruption and Economic Chaos by Ravi Batra and Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping, to name just a few.  I am always working on four or five at a time, usually in wildly divergent topic areas. 

I have loved reading since I was a child.  I am starting to mourn the evidence that our love of reading, of all kinds of books, is slowly being lost.  That saddens me. We are bombarded by information from everywhere, 24/7: the internet, television, video games, You Tube, and 500 cable channels (though we often wistfully wonder why “nothing is on”).  It is easy to forget the simple charm of a book.  Books allow me to “fall through the page” into a different world.  That is what I love about them, the fact that I can travel into deep space or to Hogwarts or to the edge of the South China Sea, all without leaving my chair.  I love being challenged to think about the political system in this country, or about the value of silence and solitude (two things I cherish as a writer).  I love all that I learn when I read; I love the way I am changed by what I read. 

I grew up surrounded by readers.  My mother, who is 73, still reads several books a week.  My older brother reads voraciously and makes his living working in a bookstore.  I am a writer.  I am currently working on two novels, a collection of poems, and a whole pile of other projects.  You may think that my desire that we continue to read stems from my ambition as a writer.  Perhaps that is a small part of it.  But mostly I think we need to continue to foster a love of reading (and by association, writing) so that we do not lose sight of the best, most inspiring, and important ideas and solutions available to us.  Reading opens the eyes and the heart.  Reading allows us to experience another person’s pain, sorrow, joy or triumph.  Reading offers a window into the human spirit.  We cannot lose that.  We simply cannot.

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry

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The Outsider

I’ve been an outsider all of my life.  I longed to fit in, but I never did.  I could not force my soul into the shoebox required to squeeze into the assembly line of children at school.  I dreamt of carbon, stars, the alphabet, space travel, piano chords, and choirs of angels – while my classmates read Tip and Mitten and colored line drawings of triangles red, yellow, and blue. 

 

I read about Amelia Earhardt, flying her plane around the world, or, Helen Keller, blind and deaf, but still able to go to college and become the voice of a generation.  I found stories about girls who were strong and smart and used their own wits to get themselves out of tight spots.  In daydreams, in books, I found solace.  I found individuals like me, people living on outside.   I always felt as though I was watching the beautiful holiday party standing outside the window with snow falling silently around me.  For as long as I can remember, that is the chalk drawing I have of myself.

 

It wasn’t a sad place.  I lived in a world of my own making, starring in my own movie, sure of my lines.  In fact, I felt sorry for anyone who wouldn’t allow herself to step out of line, to dance outside the circle, to wear a mismatched outfit or sing off-key.  I usually liked being the invisible one, the one with rough edges, the velvet-black sheep no one understood, wearing the coat of the maverick.  That was how I thought of myself, and I was OK with it.

 

But now when I look at photographs of myself as a child, I see a solemn, mercurial little girl.  A child who spent her time alone because the children she met didn’t relate to the way she saw the world.  I see a lonely child with fireflies for eyes, who could find no one to talk to, no one to tell her secrets to, no one to untangle her mysteries with.

 

I realize now, being an outsider has made me an artist.  I tend to observe the smallest nuance of a situation and remember details, the threads that tie things up, the hairline fractures, the dirt in someone’s eye.  I hone in on things that others don’t pay attention to: patterns, tone, undercurrents…  I’ve lived my whole life pulled by the undertow of each day.  I’ve found myself in too deep, seaweed swirling around my feet, unable to swim away – swallowing salty water and wondering about the truth of things. 

 

I have always wanted to reveal the truth.  I became the truth-teller in my family, much to their chagrin.  Lies become comfortable for most of us, so easy to muck about in, but lies don’t reveal what is really needed in the world now, except if you interpret them as opposite of what’s being said, as mirror images, as the truth spelled backward.  It is only now that I am 48 that I have begun to understand my own life, to see it as a spiritual journey full of necessary losses and bits of light and shadow.  It is only now that all the pieces of me and the mosaic the shattered parts, make, is clear.   It is only now that I am able to discern the roads I’ve traveled, the reason I’ve been alone for much of the trip, and the ways in which this journey has stretched me all the way up to the sky.  I have lived on the outside of society, of relationship, of school, of work – for all of my years.  That solitude has forged me into a woman on the verge, a woman with a sense of her mission, a woman who knows what is true for her.

 

I don’t have to look outside for answers.  All these years I have been tending and watering, weeding and raking, the soil of my soul, the garden inside me.  I know who I am.  As a child, I knew – but didn’t realize what I was doing.  I was shaping the clay of my soul, even then.  So, I followed true north, and wove all the strands of my isolation and my sensitivity and my sadness into the tapestry of my life.  And now I have a beautiful, inconceivable, glittering life to wrap myself in and stay warm. 

 

I am still outside.  I am still waiting and watching.  I was put here to do just that, to give voice to those of us standing in the rain, standing on the outside, looking in.  Whether we realize it or not, each one of us, is an outsider – in one way or another.  Each one of us longs to be known and understood and found out.  I learned early that no one but Spirit could answer my questions, so I went inside myself to find the mystery.  And there, lo and behold, I found everything I needed.

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry

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Declaring My Energetic Independence

It is your mind that creates the world – Buddha

 

Independence Day.  The Fourth of July is an opportunity to take a break at the mid-point of the year and assess our lives.  Generally, rather than simply viewing it as a time to wave the flag, eat too many burgers and dogs, and watch a riotous display of fireworks, I see it as a chance to free myself from any constraints or burdens I may have knowingly (or unknowingly) taken on during the first half of the year.  If they no longer serve me, I must walk away.  I declare my independence from sloth and bullshit and sadness, if that is what I find on my plate.  Today, I declare my independence from the apathy, paralytic depression, and fear that is so palpable these days.  Everyone is vibrating with fear about gas prices and food and the cost of cooling their homes.  I can understand their fear, but I am currently making a conscious effort not to join in the collective tendency to buy into the “hard times” society as a whole is “selling” us.  The more we are bathed in negative news, the worse off we believe we are; and what we believe becomes our reality.  There is truth in the adage: what you focus on, increases.   

 

The older I get, the more deeply I believe that we do, in fact, create the conditions in which we find ourselves.  Reality reflects the inner life condition of every human being on this ephemeral jewel of a planet.  In one of the Buddhist sutras, Shakyamuni illustrates this concept by noting that when looking at the Ganges River, an unenlightened person might see nothing but filth and suffering in the dirty, polluted water; while a Buddha (one who is filled with light) looks at the same river and sees “amrita” – the water of the Gods.  Both people are looking at the same thing, but see it completely differently based upon the perspective, or life condition, they approach it with.  I can literally feel my energy deplete when I listen to rampant negativity about life on this planet.  It is almost as though I shrink in size, trying to keep from touching the burning edges of such a mindset.  We each have a choice and must choose to believe in and act upon our highest ideals, rather than our lowest expectations.  Yes, there is crime, poverty, and hopelessness almost everywhere we turn.  Yes, 50% of our high school students (particularly in urban, blighted areas) are dropping out of high school.  If we don’t find a way to instill hope in these kids, so that they stay in school and are able to get an education, they will (without a doubt) end up as another several hundred thousand members of our already burgeoning prison population.  As a society we need to adopt a more “enlightened” view of our circumstances so we can see our way into solving our problems.  Burying our heads in the sand or drilling for oil off every coast of this country will not turn the tide.  A revolution in the way we think about and live our lives is necessary.

 

Life has many burdens, not the least of which is earning a living and taking care of a wild array of personal and collective responsibilities.  But the thing that is most needed in each of us is a sense that we can prevail over our problems and we can build lives that we want to live.  We must believe in the human spirit to rise up and overcome difficulties.  We must.

 

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –   W. Clement Stone

 

So, on this Independence Day, I am laying down the sense that it might be too late to truly transform our future.  I am walking away from the feeling that there are not others who also believe in the resiliency of the human heart.  I choose to embrace the idea that the universe is a benevolent and kind place of beauty, blessings, and, yes, challenges.  But like the individuals who built the country we celebrate today, I am capable of digging deep and working hard.  If we start to see others around the world as our fellows, not our enemies (no matter how different they may appear to be) we will be well on our way to altering the path of humanity.  I believe that if we put our minds and hearts into solving the global climate crisis, into adopting alternative ways of living in and seeing this world (as something more than a source of fuel to be pillaged and drilled and mined, but as a living entity), and into believing in our children’s capacity to overcome challenges and disappointments (without giving them a trophy to shore up their self-esteem), we can solve this.  This is a country of great innovation, new ideas, and boundless creativity.  I believe we can do it.

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry

 

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Desperately Seeking Silence

In Remembrance of my father, Wallace Earle Berry

June 29, 1926 – March 18, 2003

 

According to Wayne Muller, ordained minister and author of Sabbath – Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives, the reason that the idea of celebrating a Sabbath is starting to gain ground again is because there is a rising sense of understanding that it is only by resting we are renewed.  Silence is the moist ground from which our realizations, creativity, and inspiration rise.  If we never slow down; never grow silent; never take time to just sit with ourselves—how can we possibly expect to care for others? 

 

Women take care of everyone and everything except themselves.  We think that if we constantly give to others we are being good wives, daughters, mothers, worker bees and lovers.  Buddhists believe that our outer environment is simply a reflection of our inner life as human beings.  If our inner life lacks peace, our outer environment will mirror that.  At its most fundamental level it is a sort of cosmic “What goes around comes around” energetic.  Think about it.  Turning inward to take care of ourselves, we create stillness and peace.  By adding simple things like silent meditation, prayers of gratitude, or rituals of grace into our everyday activities, we are—one drop at a time—creating a movement of women who are planting seeds for peace.  Silence is the one place where each person can hear spirit, if she chooses to listen.  In silence we can hear the still small voice asking us to forge a luminous, authentic life.  We can hear our own heart beating and feel the life that permeates every cell in our bodies.  We become aware of our aches and pains, of the ways in which we drive ourselves into the ground always thinking that “doing” is more important than “being.”

 

Take a moment to call in a healing breath, and quiet your senses.  Listen to hum of the air conditioner or the buzzing of the lights.  Become aware of how you are sitting and where your weariness is residing.  This person is the person who needs your care.

 

Clear some time for yourself each week.  Do not plan anything during that time.  Allow an empty space on your calendar.  Take a nap.  Sit and stare at the mackerel sky.  Remember how you felt as a child – so unencumbered and free?  Go in search of that child.  See if you can do nothing for an entire afternoon.  Send guilt packing.  She’s got other fish to fry.  Do it.

 

You will be amazed at your own renewal.

 

© 2008 Shavawn M. Berry

 

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Falling Back In Time

The concept of linear time is a strange thing.  This summer marks my 30th high school reunion–which I have no plans to attend–as well as the 21st anniversary of my graduation from New York University, and the tenth anniversary of my receipt of my graduate degree from the professional writing program at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. 

 

Those facts, so neatly laid out, still seem impossible.

 

It was only yesterday I crossed the threshold of my first year of school at Westview Elementary School in Spokane, Washington.  I wore a homemade polka dot dress and a pair of brand new saddle shoes from the shoe department at J. C. Penney.  Away from my mother for the first time that day, I stood next to my small wooden desk, fighting the urge to cry as she valiantly headed for the door, a patent leather purse slung over her arm like an afterthought.  She left me with a teacher who wore a gash of red lipstick and an emerald green skirt and jacket.  Her name was Mrs. Otto.

 

I watched the clock’s slow hands move throughout that first day. 

 

I wanted to stamp my foot; anything to get the clock to move! Years passed before Momma reappeared, and it was time to go home. 

 

Now 48, I often feel bewildered by the speed of these intervening years.  They have passed through me like lightning.  My life has been completely changed by time – by the passage of it, by the stripping away of the notion of permanence, by the knowledge that time is the most ephemeral of all my so-called possessions.

 

So why bother contemplating the passage of time?

 

I have recently reconnected with a few of the friends I haven’t spoken to or heard from during the past 30 years.  These are the friends of my girlhood.  Friends who stood next to me as I passed through elementary, junior high, and high school;  girls itching to delineate their boundaries, to forge characters and lives outside the confines of suburban life in the 1960s and 1970s.  Women now, these girls remember a version of me I have forgotten.  And because they remember me, suddenly, I do too.  Through their eyes I remember that pensive waif standing on the periphery of the school yard.  I was certain I’d lost her to the dark waters of memory.

 

I chatted on the phone last night with a high school friend.  I haven’t seen or heard from her since the early 1980s, yet I often wondered what became of her.  She had a long waterfall of chestnut colored hair, a crooked smile, and a delicate and diminutive body.  She moved like a graceful doe through the hell we charitably label as “high school” in this country.  The two of us met in junior high. We lived on the edge of the world of cheerleaders, school pride, football, and the perennial favorite: binge drinking (and the requisite projectile vomiting afterward).  We were never part of it.  We never really wanted to be part of it.  I take pride in the fact that high school was decidedly not the high point of my life.

 

“Whenever I heard anything by Elton John over the years, I thought of you,” she said, the hum of the telephone wire singing quietly behind her voice.

 

Elton John’s photos wallpapered my school locker back in the day.  He was, and still is, my soundtrack for the entire decade of the 1970s.

 

“Wild,” I replied.  “You know I met him, right?”  I told the story of meeting Mr. John backstage at a concert in London.

 

We talked about the people we still have peripheral connections to, although neither one of us has maintained contact with anybody from the class of 1978. We talked about the weirdness of reunions and the passage of time.  We talked wistfully about our choices and the tributaries of connection that somehow bind us: the fact that we don’t have children; that we both managed to navigate the waters of life without ever jumping into that particular boat.

 

Eventually we closed the conversation by exchanging addresses.  She promised to come visit me.  

 

I was surprised by the ease of the conversation and the laughter that punctuated it.  It was as though I finally had a chance to open a gift I had forgotten I’d received.

 

Copyright 2008 – Shavawn M. Berry

 

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355 Days

I woke up this morning and realized it’s been nearly a year since I last saw your face. 355 days.  It’s been nearly a year since I stood in the middle of my living room and watched you walk out the door – of my apartment and my life. I see now, that in a certain sense, I have been holding my breath ever since.  Holding my breath hoping against hope that you would see things my way, that you would feel me in the marrow of your bones the way that I felt you, and that you would find the trail of crumbs you left behind, and make your way back here, no worse for the wear.

 

Of course, that is simply wishful thinking; or perhaps obsessive compulsive bullshit; or finally the last residual bits of the deep period of mourning that I have been stuck in since you and I went out separate ways.

 

Now you come to me in my dreams.  You beckon me and I am tempted to follow you into underground garages, into abandoned warehouses, into black cars idling at the curb.  I am tempted.  But I know better.  I know that had you been the person my life needed most, you would have known it, and you would have found your way back.  Not so.  Not so.

 

I wonder sometimes when I will stop longing for the outcome to be different between us.  I wonder when I will truly accept that there is no “us”.  I wonder when I will realize that I made the right choice, the empowered choice; in fact, I made the only choice I could.  I know that I need and deserve certainty.  I also know that life is not certain, nothing is; certainly not the love of another human being.  It is inherently risky, even on a bell clear day.  There is no certainty in whether love will last, whether love will come, or whether that particular love will choose me, above all others.  I cannot control the heart that beats in another person’s chest.  I can only continually be willing to risk my own heart. 

 

So, that’s what bubbles to the surface this morning, almost a year later.

 

I am forging a willing heart.  Today, that’s enough.

 

Copyright 2008 – Shavawn M. Berry

 

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