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if you click it,  you can see how the tallest of the native sunflowers    LEANS   and arcs toward the Earth.    Summer is letting go.   the others i cut and fed the Goats,  the seeds having been eaten quickly by finches and the wild canary.

it was a Work Away day…to the Windmill house,  the one i am thinking of   "giving up"  as my birthday present to myself.  and i am conflicted.   I really love cleaning that house.  It's spacious and easy.  Always so peaceful there.  It provides half the income i use for Goat feed every month.  The Man there, Steve,  won't be ok with anyone new.   Martha,  the Woman there.  does not do housework,  but rides the horses she breeds.  So for them,  a bummer.   It's Easy.  It feeds Goats.  But i want to just be Here.  So,  we'll see.

And i stopped by the Old Cowboy who was so Soft today.   How can i say it.   He was just soft.   His hand on my arm but not in the old way,  just a light and soft way and his face,  soft too.  He talked about how much he loves Travis,  the caregiver,  how Travis tells him stories and he smiled and asked me if i had the "money book" with me and i thought he meant the notebook he keeps the monthly statements from the bank in and said no…i leave that in the drawer over there where it always is and he said   NO!,  you don't leave it here?  and i realized he meant his check book and said Oh,  no,  i have that with me and he was back to soft again and said   Give him extra.  Give him a lot.  Which is so unlike him and i said i was so glad that he had said that because i had wanted to.  Wanted to give him a lot.   So, yes.   We were in sync today.  and he said

I love you

and i sat there looking into his face and realized this was a 

Moment

i could decide something for him

and in that moment,  i could Honestly say to him,   I love you too.  In that moment,  it was Honest and i said it.   I love you too.

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It came.   I don't know what to say.   am just so little into it,  but  i am reading something i have never read before.   Most things written are a rearrangement of words,  a rearrangement of thoughts,  sometimes very Beauty Full and perfect rearrangements,  but this….this is different.  It's

Hard.   as in New.  Different.  the same words,  the same language,  but telling a completely different story.    Here's an example:

 

TIME  sit on the shore while everything else goes on by you,  and get through  the low-level anxiety and the boredom and the feeling that you've already seen it all.  That's a good time to learn.  Here's what's there to see.  Everything we do and don't do makes a wake;  a legion of waves and troughs that pound the shores at the edges of what we mean,  grinding away on the periphery of what we know.  They go on,  after the years in which we lived our individual lives are long passed.    If we don't learn that simple , devastating  and redeeming detail of being alive….that what we do,  all the jangle of our declarations and defeats,  last longer than we ourselves do,  that the past isn't over… then the parade of our days stands to indict much more than it bequeaths.  This is something that we need to learn now.  Many  of us count on our best intent winning the day or getting us off the hook of personal or ecological consequence.  It hasn't and it won't work."

 

 

 

 

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31 responses to “Leaning into It”

  1. Stephanie Avatar
    Stephanie

    Yes. That moment one can never imagine before it happens, with someone who has been a difficult challenge for whatever reason. And yet that moment comes when we can say in all honesty, “I love you.” It comes as such a gift.

    Like

  2. grace Avatar

    yes and if i hadn’t said it
    it would have been so dishonest, so NOT True
    and all that had come before it would have fallen away as Nothing
    but with the reality of that single moment, when it WAS True..
    we
    got someWhere
    some kind of new Real that rose in that single moment.
    You Know this.

    Like

  3. Mo Crow Avatar

    you are a very special woman Grace

    Like

  4. Dana Avatar

    To arrive at the point where the new Real becomes evident…
    Blessings to you both.

    Like

  5. Michelle in NYC Avatar

    …like a veil lifting, fog dispersing, letting go
    letting love emerge to show itself. Recognition.

    Like

  6. .cynthia Avatar
    .cynthia

    oh when the light comes in..gentle day grace

    Like

  7. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Peacefully beautiful…Sending heartfelt BLESSINGS!

    Like

  8. beth Avatar

    I was going to ask you if he had said it yet. When he said he wished you could go with him I knew he had reached that point… I’m glad you got there too.

    Like

  9. Liz Avatar

    Soft-ness is a wonderful thing …
    As for “I just want to be Here” … I know what you mean, but honestly you are already the most “Here” person I know, wherever you may be

    Like

  10. Cathy Avatar
    Cathy

    You have moved me this morning…thank you for sharing your MOMENT

    Like

  11. Cindy from Georgia Avatar
    Cindy from Georgia

    Grace, yes, “that simple, devastating, and redeeming detail of being alive” … that’s your special gift and what you do when you are “Here” wherever you are. Especially here. luv u, Cindy 🙂

    Like

  12. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    The heart opening, saying what comes, taking it in, accepting and acknowledging and reciprocating, if only for that moment shared. As hard as it is to be a part of someone’s final journey,especially if it is family, a gift is given to be there at journey’s end. I have been reading closely to see how this goes for you, caring for someone who is not blood and does that even matter? Maybe, maybe not but I think it makes a difference because the emotional distance is stronger when it is not family but I have only experienced family deaths so as I said, I don’t know…the hardest was to accept the gift of being present at the end, took me a long time to understand.
    Quite the contrast, the softening, with what you are reading; how we live our lives, the whole of it, defining us even at the end.

    Like

  13. dee Avatar

    I read about his softness, his free attitude toward money (previously so tight) and I think, You have changed him. Perhaps you have changed each other, but surely you have been a force for good in his life… you are ‘leaving a wake’

    Like

  14. NancyK Avatar

    sunflowers
    completing this years cycle
    telling stories yet to unfold
    bowing with grace, for grace
    with love
    namaste dear one

    Like

  15. Martine Bos Avatar

    Being there… eye to eye….holding a hand is all that counts……..

    Like

  16. grace Avatar

    not really. ordinary. but the Circumstance calls to be the
    best, most Real we can be. Me and him. Life asks.

    Like

  17. grace Avatar

    oh do we need
    blessings

    Like

  18. grace Avatar

    and then the fog returns. Comes and Goes. Comes and Goes.
    let me recognize Love when it appears. this i ask.

    Like

  19. grace Avatar

    brief…a shaft of Light

    Like

  20. grace Avatar

    It comes and goes now. Today, Wednesday, he just slept.

    Like

  21. grace Avatar

    Sort of
    but there is SO MUCH more to Here that i watch flit by

    Like

  22. grace Avatar

    then this all has Meaning, to have mattered to you this morning

    Like

  23. grace Avatar

    thank you Cindy for luv
    luv
    is sustaining

    Like

  24. grace Avatar

    if only for that moment shared
    yes. if only for that moment shared…………………..

    Like

  25. grace Avatar

    WE
    change
    each Other

    Like

  26. grace Avatar

    Namaste to you, to you, a Dear One

    Like

  27. grace Avatar

    eye to eye.
    We were. that moment went on for Ever

    Like

  28. Shishi Avatar

    Dearest Grace…..I am witnessing.

    Like

  29. grace Forrest Avatar

    seems like so so long ago now, here i am today
    but still Witnessing
    still
    Bless
    Bless all
    Who Witness
    Bless All Who ARE Witnessed

    Like

  30. Nancy Avatar

    Dearest Grace, I’ve not been here much in a very long time, but tonight I’ve spent the last long while reading backwards and catching up of sorts. Your days, moments, stories hold me. This one takes my breath away. I am still in my reflection. Gentle hugs your way Grace.

    Like

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