Saturday, May 2nd, 2008 ~ Seattle, Washington
(this is the continuation of a travel journal that begins with the April 18th entry further below)
It’s hard to know how to find words in moments like these, but then knowing myself as I do I just wait a little longer and they always do come. Besides, now that I have coffee to drink a bit of the travel hangover will soften and leave more space in my achy head for poetry. Poetry for me isn’t just pretty verse…it is everything I see all around me all the time. It is the ongoing song of life as I experience it…one long poem.
Sometimes it is painful, but there is redemption in the fact that it is somehow still a poem.
As you can see from the entry I am back in Seattle, just as of a few strange between-the-worlds hours. I flew for 13 hours, starting my day at 4am in a hotel in Athens. Now it is the middle of the night for me after that long day…but here it is only the afternoon and I am trying to stay awake to get adjusted. And now you are helping me do it just by being “out there” for me to write to.
I am back where I started, and yet completely changed. It is always this way after travel for me. In fact we are changed in each moment…we just don’t always know it or feel free to rejoice in it and exercise it. We are surrounded by people, places and things which expect us to stay somewhat the same. That, and we ourselves sometimes hold back as not to lose whatever structure we have created around who we think we are. It is rare to find a person who really lives out the ever-changing work of art that they are…but I think it will become less and less rare.
I think anything that sets us free…anything that returns us to ourselves, is an amazing blessing. These blessings are more valuable than the most precious gold. I thought about this yesterday when our new friends came and picked us up at our hotel and took us to the ocean. It filled me up completely in one instant to see the it again, and the place they took us, to the Poseidon Temple at Cape Sounion was one of the most exquisite places I have ever been. The sheer rocks from the temple down to the vibrant blue and green Agean sea were magnificent, and I felt as though I was returned to myself. It isn’t that we ever leave ourselves, but certain special things remind us of this, and get us in touch with what we most connect with in our being.
Then there are the things that remind us who we are by making us forget. They offer us a fresh look by stripping away everything we thought we knew. Like travel, for instance. Anyone who knows me and saw me right now would probably say I wasn’t looking so good…exhausted and pretty delirious…but at the same time with some new light in my eyes and my skin. I have physical pain and soreness everywhere and my stomach feels like its full of stones from the foods I have been eating. I have a second-hand-smokers cough and will probably be ready for a good detox after all of this…and at the same time there is a different radiance coming from me. This is what happens when life breaks us…it puts us together more beautifully than before…more as we really are.
I can’t believe I am writing at this point, and since the letters are actually beginning to swim around a bit on the screen I think I had better stop for now. I will just say that I feel really good underneath. I feel that I have yet another chance to take a new step, and to make it anything I want to. We may break a lot of pots, but life never stops giving us new clay to work with. And I am ready to keep getting my hands dirty making shapes from the poetry of life. I hope this day, and those coming ahead in this very special month of May are filled with light, hope and new life for you. I hope the fires of Beltane light a flame in your heart that illuminates the next steps in your path with passionate joy.
Here is to new dreams…
Love, Jennifer
