Yesterday was Wilfred’s second birthday and despite not doing much in the way of celebrating - we are opting to wait until we are all 5 together again for the proper birthday festivities- we had a near perfect day with our littlest. We hiked a new trail, we picked berries and Freddy ate them, we found a perfect swimming pond, we napped, we made and ate blueberry pie, we sang. It really could not have been a finer day.
Summer is at its apex right now. Everything is at the height of its fullness: the heat and humidity are ON, which I for one adore; the days have a long and stretched out feeling almost like a pause in time which is simply excellent; and everyone seems to be in good cheer and heart-full and for all of these things and more, I am thankful. This might just be the very best moment of the year and what a fine time to have a birthday indeed.
Some of these quite right feelings must be in part due to the step away that I have taken from social media for the month. I have put down IG and it is such a breath of fresh air that at this moment I would love to never pick it up again. I am only 9 days in and the spaciousness I feel in my mind and in my days is just the best. I feel present and able and undistracted. I feel inspired and calm at the same time. The anxiety that I shared about in my last post here has faded into a lesson learned and I have room inside of myself to create something new for what feels like the first time in a long while. I feel settled and relatively satisfied.
I probably will pick it up again at the end of the month. It is certainly an effective way to work my work; but I am hesitant to sign back in and will most likely hatch some kind of user agreement with myself before making the journey back. I want a schedule and better boundaries. I want to keep all of this room that has opened up inside of me alive and flowing. I want to knit and write and read and swim and hike and eat and be with myself and my kids more. I want to respect my time. So, ya know. Some considerations and general regrouping as I gather myself up out of the hole that I stumbled in to.
So that is all. Here are a few pics from our day with Wilfie yesterday. Oh yes, and this fabulous piece by David Whyte called Hiding that my gal Liz shared with me at the onset of the IG break. Sums it up quite nicely. Thank Liz. You the best.
HIDING
Hiding is a way of staying alive. Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Even hiding the truth from ourselves can be a way to come to what we need in our own necessary time. Hiding is one of the brilliant and virtuoso practices of almost every part of the natural world: the protective quiet of an icy northern landscape, the held bud of a future summer rose, the snow bound internal pulse of the hibernating bear. Hiding is underestimated. We are hidden by life in our mother’s womb until we grow and ready ourselves for our first appearance in the lighted world; to appear too early in that world is to find ourselves with the immediate necessity for outside intensive care.
Hiding done properly is the internal faithful promise for a proper future emergence, as embryos, as children or even as emerging adults in retreat from the names that have caught us and imprisoned us, often in ways where we have been too easily seen and too easily named. We live in a time of the dissected soul, the immediate disclosure; our thoughts, imaginings and longings exposed to the light too much, too early and too often, our best qualities squeezed too soon into a world already awash with too easily articulated ideas that oppress our sense of self and our sense of others. What is real is almost always to begin with, hidden, and does not want to be understood by the part of our mind that mistakenly thinks it knows what is happening. What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.
Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others, especially in the enclosing world of oppressive secret government and private entities, attempting to name us, to anticipate us, to leave us with no place to hide and grow in ways unmanaged by a creeping necessity for absolute naming, absolute tracking and absolute control. Hiding is a bid for independence, from others, from mistaken ideas we have about our selves, from an oppressive and mistaken wish to keep us completely safe, completely ministered to, and therefore completely managed. Hiding is creative, necessary and beautifully subversive of outside interference and control. Hiding leaves life to itself, to become more of itself. Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future.
