Recently, I’ve felt and understood a joy that permeates my body and sustains me. This quote describes one seemingly simple, but loaded reason for my sense of fulfillment:
“It is the chiefest point of happiness that a [woman] is willing to be what [she] is.”
- Desiderius Erasmus
Beyond a willingness to be myself, there’s joy in I feeling like I can be accepted for being myself. When I am being what some might considered flawed—pissed off, childlike, or wanting to make non-PC humorous observations—I know there is someone around me who can understand me, laugh with me, or know that my funk will pass.
Both staying and leaving have aided in my development and acceptance of my imperfect self. I love traveling challengingly and deeply. I seek out strength gained through having to re-adapt… the destruction of self and the fortified rebuilding. While traveling has helped me define myself, remaining in one place has helped me solidify myself.
It’s given me the opportunity to reveal myself slowly through both personal and artistic interactions and find that there are people out there who accept quirks and flaws and whole people. Like any physical trip I’ve taken, this inner journey has been less scary and more beautiful than I imagined it would be before it began.
After spending a day hiking in Henry Coe State Park, I could not fall asleep. When I closed my eyes that night, the hues of the day lingered in my mind. In my delight in their memory, I embraced the vivid images and relinquished a bit of rest.
Verdancy with blankets of purple and orange wildflowers. Azure with flashes and swirls of white butterflies. Clarity and fluidity gliding over rocks and soaking my feet.
I held on to these visions knowing that in a short while, spring’s color show will have disappeared. The rain will stop falling and the summer sun will suck the grasses, flowers and creeks dry. But images of the fleeting shades of revival will give me something to look forward to until the sky water colors the land again.
I spent the final afternoon of last year’s Pacific Northwest trip in a cafe called El Diablo. One of my Seattle friends always tries to convince me that the weather there is not that bad, but outside, the frenetic rain proved otherwise. The bright Latin America-inspired cafe felt like the perfect warm refuge. I skimmed through some local papers to kill time before I had to leave. In one of them, my horoscope read:
You’re in luck, Virgo. Not so much in the sense of winning the lottery or scoring a major award, but more in a spiritual sense. Do you know “Auguries of Innocence,” the poem by William Blake? I think you’ll experience what it describes: “To see a world in a grain of sand/ And heaven in a wild flower/ Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/ And eternity in an hour.”
It summed up my trip completely. There was not much to “see” or “do”, it was more about enjoying and appreciating the simple things– the company of old friends, the freedom of a mini roadtrip, flower farms and snow-capped mountains, meeting interesting travelers and friendly locals, and a rainy afternoon spent in a colorful cafe.
