Thought Cookie: Edition 14, Vol. 2
A Poem of Transformation
This is a time of great transformation.
I kept expecting to write, “transition” but that would not embody all of what I’m feeling, observing and experiencing.
What we find ourselves in is transition.
What we are doing is transforming.
The transition is painful, annoying, uncomfortable.
The transformation is highly spiritual.
It’s happening in the deep interior of us.
As these inner realizations find footing inside of us, they begin to slowly hike out. Into our outward being.
Into our actions, what we choose,
how we handle the ones we love,
the way we spend our time.
In the last year and a half, I’ve been broken down in ways I cannot yet name
and affirmed in ways that surprise and confound me.
A woman in her mid-40s,
this transformation coincides
with the interwoven lessons of
love, loss, identity of midlife.
It feels mysteriously poignant to be holding both at once.
In the blitz of the pandemic,
bombs exploding nightly,
hunkered in our underground shelters
we hoped the detonations stayed far away,
our homes and hearts untouched.
To survive, I pulled down hard
on the lever
of my own resilience (an inborn gift).
Now, I feel myself scanning the endless corridors
to find the doorway opened by that grit.
I can’t see the portal yet.
but when I close my eyes, I feel a
certainty of fresh air coming
from some hidden, nearby gaping breezeway.
In that arrow-marked way out, I anticipate
less giving in to the struggles of the mind.
More taking action to care for myself,
to embrace what is mine
to explore first,
in sweet time.
Then give.
Not to give as a way of being.
All of this transformation becoming a poem of living.
A poem of becoming.
A poem of transformation.
Thought Cookie will be back in August when I will share another freshly-baked batch. In the meantime, thank you for returning, reading. If you’d like to ingest more of my writing, visit my full website.