The grapevines are coming back!

I just had to tell you that my grapevines are beginning to crawl up the fence once again. If you don't know the story, Donny cut them down last year to get more light to his fruit trees. I wrote a post about it.

I've missed them more than I've wanted to say. They created a mystery about walking back to the cabin and shielded if from view of the house. I felt perfectly sequestered out in the woods when they created their wall between cabin and yard.

It was almost as if they went with the soul of place...or mine.

And now they're returning -- all on their own -- the dears. I've tied some string to help guide them back over the trellis. By the end of summer...who knows? There may well be a wall again.

I've been away from myself, and their return and my own, feel linked, like our twin souls.

Storms of change and choice

For the last three months I’ve had the kind of time I haven’t had in ages. Angie was looking for a job and able to be with Henry the majority of the time. She took him to school, picked him up, took care of meals, baths and bedtime. I was still present and around enough to get casual time with Henry and a few babysitting gigs gave us some one-on-one, but for the most part, I was free. I was getting used to it. I loved it. It allowed my solo trip to the North Shore, whole days spent on my video meditation, gave me the ability to pick up and go almost whenever I chose.

Angie started a new job today.

Tonight Angie came home too tired to explain her complicated schedule. Working in a salon, I imagine there’ll be many more days like today where, other than for her dropping Henry off at school, our roles are pretty much reversed.

It was a fine day. Henry is at his best one-on-one – or on his best behavior anyway. When there’s three of us (me, his mom and his grandpa) hovering around, he acts up more.

But I wasn’t sorry Angie was too tired to go over her schedule with me. It’s been storming all night – one of those on again, off again storms that make you think it’s letting up just before the thunder resounds again and the rain goes from a quiet pitter-patter to a chorus that rumbles.

It’s been dark since 6:00 and I was in the throws of tricking Henry into an early bedtime when Angie got home, ready for bed herself, and I ran out here to the cabin.

I’ve realized that for years I’ve “run” for my time. A three month reprieve in which I got used to not doing that ought to mean something now, and I have hopes of not getting myself frantic again. That doesn’t mean I won’t come to the cabin, or even run when a busy day is through, but I’m willing to give enjoying where I am and what I’m doing a try. Then it’s a different kind of running.

It's still a little like the storm though. I might not have thought of it if the weather hadn't provided the impetus. It just seems to be the way life is. Right when you think things are letting up on you, the winds of change come around again.

This time, I’m telling myself I have a choice. If the childcare gets to be too much for me, I’ll let it be known. It’s really hard to love a child this much and still not want to be as tied to him as a parent.

I’ve gotten my first taste of grandparenting, I guess…and maybe the first taste of self-care I’ve had in a while. It’s been delicious.

Readiness and The Embrace

I’m looking out at the green that’s near to full with this morning’s rain. True to form in Minnesota, it follows a week where the weather has been (as they say) “variable.” On Monday the temperature was on the rise and reached the nineties. On Tuesday Minneapolis was one degree shy of the record of 104 degrees. On Wednesday morning the temperature had dropped 40 degrees. This morning I’m back in my hoodie.

Change, change, change. It feels like the only constant in the physical world.

I’m feeling sentimental about this blog this morning and about all the changes that it’s seen me through. Henry was barely speaking when I started it and now he’s expressing his emotions. After being thwarted in his desire to go swimming the other day, he told his mother that she was breaking his heart. Where did he learn that expression?

In recent months, he’s been saying “I’m tired,” every time he gets upset. I’ve been encouraging him to express his emotions and to find the appropriate words, but I swear, I never suggested that his heart could break. I hope that not getting to go swimming was a gentle first heartbreak.

It awes me to see how quickly he’s grown and to begin to see exchanges between him and his friends that could almost break my heart…that knowing that he’s going to find that not all people are kind…and that he’s going to have to learn to take care of himself in whatever age group he enters.

I’ve been pondering “care of the heart” a lot lately and seeing that with all of my experiences, guidance, learning, receptivity, and many years with A Course of Love, I am only now beginning to care for my heart – to become gentler with myself and to let my experience and guidance begin to show me the way.

Even while I say this though, I want to convey my great respect for all the cycles of life we go through.

I’ve become intrigued by the notion of “readiness.” How no one can tell you, no guidance can change you, no experience can irrevocably prepare you for all of the vicissitudes of life or make you ready for a new way until you’re…ready.

I’m ready now. Why wasn’t I before? I’d love to find the answer to that question, and yet, my respect for each time of life (and life change)prevents me from expecting a pat answer, or even one that might specifically address my own long period of unreadiness.

I’ll hesitantly say I’ve been “willing” all along without being “ready.” I’d describe readiness as a specific kind of willingness…something along the line of putting willingness together with action, or maybe practice, or maybe care of the heart.

All of the most meaningful things I’ve ever done have begun as an inner need that I must meet and then the realization that if I have such a need, others may have it too. I needed to create a meditation video for myself, to care for myself, to find a way to be with the words of A Course of Love each day as I begin this new practice of remembering to love myself and care for my heart.

One of my recent actions has been to start a new blog site to go along with this new practice. I posted the meditation on The Embrace from A Course of Love there. I’d like to share it with you and invite you to see it here: http://blog.acourseoflove.com