Breaking Open

When I was a kid one of my favorite things to do in the fall was to collect the most beautiful leaves and take them home, heat paraffin on the stove in a tin can and dip the leaves--lay them out on newspaper to dry. Then I had this collection of orange and yellow and red leaves that I could keep for some time. It amazes me today that my mother let me do that. All that paraffin, a tin can sitting on the burner, newspaper on the counter right next to the hot stove. It was a good thing we had a fire alarm in the house, sensing eyes for flickering light, a large red bell, like a school bell by the back door.

Anyway, it was the oaks that I loved the best. I'd bring home the horse chestnuts, the acorns, and of course, tiny cones, too. I think now that really if it wasn't for Audubon Park I'd been a real mess. Nature was my safe haven. I was in that park after school, during the summer, fall afternoons, on the weekends when I wasn't baking bread with Mary Ellen. I rode my bike there, swung, played ping pong and tether ball. There were crafts in the summer, there were benches and tables pushed into tunnels that we crawled through in the fall and in the winter we sledded the hill and skated on the flooded and frozen parking lot. All in a park.

And the rest of the time, I was hard at it at home, doing homework I didn't understand, practicing the organ, cooking, cleaning and warding off my step-father. Yes, this is the issue I realize now that impacted my marriage. There is a place in me that never stops being vigilant. That never completely lets go. That's why I'm so good at what I do. With the CranioSacral work, I can stay there present for the entire time, with the grandbaby, the same thing, with my writing the same thing. I'm good at watching continuously, because I had to.

But what about the garden--it's a place I can let go of, let it be, let it go wild, let it reseed. The cosmos took over much of the garden this year. It's very pretty and I liked it the year before, using it as a shade for the beans so the deer wouldn't see them and gobble them down, but this year, it didn't work. Of course we had a cold rainy summer and everyone complained about not getting good tomatoes and not getting this or that, but there is plenty of produce at the markets. Plenty of squash anyway. Someone did a good job.

As for life and love and things that go bump in the night, stay present I say. Listen to your heart and make sure your life is there for you in all the ways you need it to be. I'm taking my own advice.
Ciao!