We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
--T.S. Eliot --
Somehow I knew this weekend was it. I have been tinkering with this idea of a memoir, often knowing I was writing it in real time, but not knowing the exact starting or ending point. But this week it somehow became clear that I am now at the end point. I have my parameters. A question I've been living has been answered.
My plan was to take myself on an Artist Date out to Bowman's Beach, somewhere I haven't been in a long time, and just to listen deeply for my next instructions. But I got lazy and just went to Bunche, as the weekend had been flying by and I didn't feel like committing the time to driving out to Sanibel.
Bunche's tide was out farther than I've seen it in years, and solid enough to walk on. I enjoyed the cool weather, the lack of people, the expanse of space across the mud flats to walk, the sun on the water, the gentleness of the waves, the quietness of my mind. I kept waiting for something profound to emerge, but...nothing.
I found a little piece of worm rock and held it in my hand. Then I tossed it into the water with a blessing for new beginnings.
When I got back to the car, I wrote this:
Walked the sand flats
as tide was way out.
It's the ending.
It's the beginning.
For a couple of years I've
pondered my true
identity, the true me.
Through illness and returning to
places I love and
pursuing music and
better teaching and
better writing and
deep gratitude.
It's an ending.
It's a beginning.
I know my borders,
the boundaries of me,
what works,
what still needs to work.
It's an ending.
It's a beginning.
I have arrived at this place --
blue and green and all colors in between --
and I know it again for
the first time.
Title and Eliot quote from his poem "Little Giddings"
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