consideration

how important is communication? how important is it to feel heard, understood, and cared for? what does being heard, understood and cared for look like, and is it so different from person to person? what is consideration, is it the combination of all three?

I ask myself what consideration means as I wait and wait to hear from my person. our situation has the added bonus of being long distance, so our only way to stay connected is through message and voice exchange. thankfully, we manage to see each other every 2-4 weeks, but it's been extra stressful since he has had a big change in work and since I've opened up vulnerably about the way I want to continue in the relationship. since the very beginning, our exchange style has proven to be quite contrasting; what I need is different than what he needs. now, after all this time, I start to question why he does it this way, and I'm trying to understand him more fully. all I can come to though, through this personal lens which was trained with my limited resources and blind to alternatives, is that he is not interested enough to care enough to consider my feelings as I wait for connection from him.

is this too much? is this "neediness"? in this current situation, I need more from him to feel heard and cared for, to feel considered. I've expressed this but it's never stuck. in this extremely vulnerable and tender place we've landed, it's even more important for me to hear from him, to be prioritized, to be thought of, even for one second; a couple of words, an image of what he's up to, a song or a quote or a "thinking of you". when I put it this way it sounds so needy. is it not his love language? even when it's not someone's love language, how do they process their love inside themselves and lack the awareness that the partner might be wanting to hear it and feel it? how do they not want to share their inner process? how can I continue to know and trust that the care and love is there without any drop in, any communication for days? I simply struggle to understand. I want to understand.

at this moment, the only way my brain can make sense of this behaviour is that there is not enough consideration, which ultimately means there is no forethought or care about how I might be feeling. that means, I suppose, that there is not enough love there to put himself aside and give me something I need that perhaps he doesn't at that moment. I read it as, "I'm doing my thing, I don't need to do anything else for anyone else". the way I think of love is to put myself down for a second and consider what the other person might need, and I try my hardest to inquire and hopefully give them that. even just the question, the curiosity of "what might my partner need?" should lead to a result of feeling cared for and considered.

should it not?

start from the real start

the biggest fear is the one unknown. the threshold to a new land, to a new kind of safety, one I can never truly understand unless I pass through first. 

I realize I've been holding myself back from getting something I truly want. this doesn't mean I won't get things I don't want along with it - on the contrary, the good with the bad will come. I will be glad to have had the courage to stand up for myself, to have the hard conversations, to keep choosing yes, you, yes ... you. every day in every challenge. 

the heaviness of doing it alone is wearing me thin. I begin again. again. again. over and over I begin alone, trying to build a life to sustain me so that I may continue on the path to sustainability. starting alone is the opposite of doing it with another; if I truly want a life of union, then I must step away from alone completely and integrate, good, bad, ugly, joyful, ecstatic, blissful, disappointing, annoying, invigorating, heartbreaking, illuminating ... the yin and yang of existence, two opposites pouring from one container.

starting again alone means never asking the hard questions. starting again alone means the safe bet ... and the continuous "whatever" of life going round and round. I'm done with whatever. the fears are completely unfounded and do not stand on their own. when examined in the light, they stand no chance to be viable; they show the truth of my hiding, my holding to excuses and old beliefs which keep me in the past.

starting over means having nothing to lose and everything to gain. I can choose to start from anywhere - why not from where I truly, deeply want?

wealth for me = wealth for you

why is it so hard to feel good about wealth?

why do we have to prove ourselves,

to "work hard" for what we have?

what if it was easy, what if it was gifted, received?

can we not accept plenty, more, a lot,

without shame or guilt, without the feeling of unfairness?

I want my cup to be so full it overflows

so that I may pour everything into yours

(and still have some left for me)

I want to be filled over and over

so I may spill over into yours, again

and on and on I would stay full

and you would stay full

and we would drink from each other

both full, both satisfied for infinity.

on receiving the good (or bad)

who am I to say
where the miracle should come from?
who delivers it,
what gets delivered?
if I am emptiness,
the void may get filled with
all the jewels in the world,
and equally,
all the compost for fertile soil.

there may be many deaths I must die
before understanding everything is good for me.
the fortune and the mis -
the beautiful and the tarnished.
any gift of any nature
teaches the dreamer to accept what is,
and my dreams are echoing teachings
hard to accept, hard to master.

family dynamics

I've been watching my family change, grow, evolve ... at lighting speed.

all of a sudden, we can have focused conversations. all of a sudden, we can connect with each other. we look at each other in the eyes, hold gaze; they are patient and spacious, they are listening. they are present with me.

it's such a beautiful gift, and I'm not sure how it came to be this way. a lifetime of being family, being a certain way together, and all of a sudden we relate so differently. is it in the stars? is it in their new carnivore diet? (that makes me chuckle) is it just timing?

I'll never know.

another year, passed

hello 2024.

you've been quite unsettling right from the start: abrupt endings, death, movement, shedding, revealing ... but you're stirring in just the right ways. my meditations brought insights of having to let go even more, specifically of my identity and of my sense of control. I've learned that life is just happening to me, and I am suffering if I wake up in the morning trying to bend it to my will and my preferences.

so, I'm following my footsteps, which are walking to what my awareness lets in, into what's in front of me in the present moment. I'm no longer sure what intuition actually means, maybe a trust in being able to handle whatever comes my way. if I breathe, if I relax, if I let go into the moment, then anything can be a beautiful human experience. I chose to leap toward the unknown, move to a new island alone, on a farm in the winter, with little security. I am extremely fortunate to have family and friends who support me and would never let me fall, so in that, I realize I have a net to catch me, which is much more secure than most. still, I chose to leave the comfort zone - which was driving me insane - and the chaos of uncertainty here is proving to be worthwhile.

I've started meditating every day, trying to do 1-1.5 hours since the meditation retreat on Gambier early December. I've started a new job venetian plastering, which has been a goal for years. I'm in a cabin on Saltspring island, surrounded by forest, nestled between several tiny cabins. Matilda has bit the dust, so I am without wheels, having to depend on others for transport, continuously humbled. I have started drawing again, for my own pleasure, and am starting to get excited to participate in murals and other art projects soon. I have taken a step back from the self-sufficient path, for now, and trust that I will realign with it once I've got more tools (plaster being one of them). this island is magic for me right now, and I am so grateful for the humans who dance, play, and act from a place of creativity. I am learning to love, to really put in the work, to shift my mindset about what and who is good for me. 

I wonder what's next.

Rosie Coloured Glasses

I take in the view from your star window;

a field of dreams, of bamboo and blackberry, 

cloth floating through the breeze in the rolling meadow. 

I walk through the field to the next room;

Trees of pear, apple, plum and persimmon

morning dew awakening my feet as I glide,

humming a tune, expansive in my being.

A family of strangers greet me as I enter;

endless bounty, generosity, child-like ease,

"come in as you are", a rare feeling of knowing.

Soon the sweet bitterness of coffee finds my tongue,

bird calling for you, you approaching me,

and an embrace, a touch of my back, awakens me to begin.