Renewal Forty-Nine : Drama, Hormones, Or The Stars?

Perhaps it is only my sense of drama, but I seem to be in a turmoil about what feels like some decisions coming my way I’m not sure I want to deal with. It is a funny thing about wanting something and putting oneself out there–there is likely to come a time in which the manifestation of that wanting is going to come around.

I can trace this back to late 1985 when I made those decisions to change the course of my life. That creative endeavor has wrought some concrete changes that now seem to be advancing on me. Either that or I’m in some sort of hormonal fluctuation.

In any case, I can feel the pull of the cocoon that I’ve been wrapped up in. Sometimes it seems like it is time for emergence, yet the cocoon part of myself wants to sleep in a little longer. I know that this emergence is inevitable, I want that emergence, but I still feel the safety of being encapsulated, of roaming around in my own little cave dancing with my own little shadows.

On the surface of it, I came out of my last chrysalis in 1986 when I chose to return to school. But school is actually a good place to hide in plain sight. Students are being evaluated, but there are ways to learn and yet not be noticed much.

This is not to say that I was a wallflower, indeed I have always been outspoken, but I’ve not overwhelmed anyone with my work–it was development that concerned me and I did not design that learning or that work around being noticed or embraced.

So I did change, but I still kept that reclusive part of myself intact.

Even with the advent of teaching and leaving my landscaping business, I have followed the same pattern, speak up, work, and step back into the shadows. I suppose that a part of me knows that I’m a slow enough learner to not stampede into the open, or maybe I just created that slowness because it seemed to suit me, or I was nervous about being noticed, or something.

When I divorced in 1970, I really withdrew (in my own way) and went into a cycle that involved working only enough to travel, which basically went on until 1976. I really felt comfortable during much of that time, the casual learning and breaking of boundaries which can occur when one travels suited me. Things changed, I felt challenged, yet I could do all of it at a speed that I could handle. It was as though there was enough time to think about the experiences as they were happening, as opposed to going so fast that experiences built up without the benefit of sorting them all out.

When I emerged from that cycle to begin a business in 1976, I went to work with a vengeance that did not stop until late 2000. Since that time, I’ve been working, but I’ve also been realigning myself for what I considered the next phase. While I’ve been busy since that time, I’ve also released a lot of old stuff that had been driving me, and I’ve had the chance to think about and order my experiences.

Now, with what feels like many impending changes, I’m jealously guarding my space, not having had much since 1976. I guess it is true that one must be careful what one asks for.

All those changes feel close, I notice it in my gut. But, like I said, perhaps it is only drama, or hormones, or just the stars.

Certainly rhythms have a funny way of seeming like concrete realities, unchanging particulars, when we are in the midst of them. But, given the nature of rhythms, they do move on, even if they leave residuals on the shoreline of ourselves.