Just now, I sliced a purple onion to put in my garbanzo bean salad – have you looked at one of those lately?

– How utterly beautiful they are –

But the slicing brought a deluge of tears so strong, that I shut my eyes and continued to cut by feel only, slice, slice slice, above the whoosh of the dishwasher. The tears stung and cleaned me out – even if onion induced – nothing feels better than a good cry.

Now I have those onions carmelizing in the pan; will that be good in a salad? I don’t know, but I will try.

I am moving forward without so much definition of just what exactly that means.

Moving is such an opportunity for release and reinvention. We are only going 8 miles or so. Boxing up, throwing out, I am seeing what it is that constitutes our lives; all of this activity gives perspective. We are a collection of stuff. We are a collection of shared experiences. We, my daughters and I, while away a bit of time together – and then things change – some so gradually you hardly notice, and other things disappear overnight. AH!

I found some old journals full of anguished thoughts. I visited my dear younger self in her sorrow. These sorrows in that time, as well as joys, did pass. The self I visited then is no longer the me of now, and the future me will look back at the me of now with loving tenderness.

The journey is important, but not in the way the mind wants to make it so.

Getting the sticky parts out can be a bit uncomfortable and embarrassing to the self that can be embarrassed. The real self recognizes there is no shame in the journey.

I forget. I expose my shadows in the mirror of my experiences. I fall down mind spirals that I no longer think are possible. When I return, what is left?

Nothing left to lose. It is insane to believe in loss.

The world of self-esteem, Own it, girl, strut your stuff, I’m all that 🙂 has a hard time with some of these ideas. The loss of identity in some ears sounds like the opposite of a healthy outlook. Funny!

Stripping down to the real thing is the opposite of adding on or building up –

what is here is all that