a beautiful message from an old faraway friend this morning started me thinking about all the people and events that shape us and reshape us into who we really are. and that who we "really are" is forever evolving. i'm also thinking about all the people i have loved and who have loved me because, you know...it's love week* after all.
we've always heard that you have to love yourself first before you can truly love others. some of us are born into love and its light fills us from our very first breath. some of us struggle a bit more to feel safe and connected in the world. i fall into the latter group. but as the years go by and i pay attention to all the teachers in my life (i am a very very good student), the wall around my defended heart gets chinked away at bit by bit. the light that seeps through is warm and illuminating and pure and healing.
i accept that my journey is my journey, but i so wish that the teachers of my past...those who came into my life holding mirrors, spotlights, stories, hammers and faith...could experience the fruits of their labor. i think of the friend who sent the message and how she deserves to be loved by the kind of friend i am now. i think of my daughter and i wonder what differences would exist if the me i have become was the constant in her young childhood. and so many more lovely souls who veered onto my path and walked with me for a leg of the journey need to know that i was listening and learning and becoming, even if it didn't seem so at the time.
thank you. thank you. thank you.
love after love
the time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. eat.
you will love again the stranger who was your self.
give wine. give bread. give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
sit. feast on your life.
-derek walcott
{*join me in celebrating a week of love: post each day this week about any aspect of love and what it means to you.}
