Trying, really!

I'm trying so hard to do many things: care for my beloved granddaughter Thistle, teach, and try to keep my toes in dance and knitting. Quilting has gone by the wayside, for now. There are not enough hours in the day to do everything. A year ago, my life quite literally changed on a dime and Thistle came to me; she was not yet two years old. Now she is almost three and a beautiful, thriving little girl. I see her opening and opening to the world, and I am very proud to know that I made a difference in her life. I will not have an empty nest again for another fifteen years. I will be in my late sixties at that time. Honestly, after a couple of years of it, I discovered that the empty nest is a bit on the overrated side. Tonight in dance I longed a little for a time when I could dance, then stroll over to New Leaf Market and get a hot apple/ginger juice and make an entry in my journal. There were oceans of time then that I simply let sweep over me. But now, time is compressed, as the universe once was compressed before it quite literally gave birth to itself. I now think that the true mark of maturity is the ability to adapt to change and ride the changes with a sense of anticipation, even in the midst of fear and uncertainty. I thought, just over a year ago, that I could participate in my Zen center more fully: cook for homeless people with everyone on Friday, sit zazen as many times a week as I wanted, take classes, have discussions with the teachers. It felt so right to me. It felt as if it were time. The Goddess had other plans for me. Tonight, Thistle cuddled up to me in her flannel jammies printed with frogs and flowers. I played a track of crickets and owls in night woods so that her whole room sounded like a forest, and we read The Quilt Story, a book my children loved, especially my girls. I can tell the moment she falls asleep even when I am not looking at her, as if my own spirit sighs and exhales in the moment when she enters her dreaming. No, I did not become immersed in Zen. Instead, a life was given to me in which it is possible to truly live Zen, to stand in the moment fully, to surf the waves of change, knowing that the universe is built on ebb and flow. Life with Thistle becomes one of minutiae: her joy in discovering a spider's web, blackberries full and ripe on the branch, a world seen "in a grain of sand." And so I thank the universe for the gift of this path: to be of service, to give of my life to another, to say a huge "YES!" and not just struggle and adjust everything to my own desires. I would have missed so much had I not just stepped into the tide of this experience, a journey in which I am learning every day what it is to nest in the eye of the hurricane, embracing whatever comes.