For as long as I can remember, I had this wild dream of roaming solo in my own little camper – just me, the open road, and the woods. I am happily married to a man I consider my best friend, I’m deeply rooted in my life, routines, and practices, and I’m grateful for the home in which I live. But there has always been something in me that needs time alone in nature – time to hear myself think, to create, to wander, to daydream, to sit beneath trees without having to explain myself. When I finally bought my little travel trailer, I thought the dream had finally arrived. What I did not yet understand was that between buying the dream and living the dream stood one very large, very humbling obstacle. I had to learn how to drive.

I needed to make this space my own. I chose soothing colors of sea greens and blues, complementing the cream-colored walls and bleached cabinets and floors. I arranged colorful pillows on the couch and the bed and hung deeply personal art on the walls. I stocked the pantry with essentials, mounted my knives on a magnetic strip, and hung a shelf for my spices. Nooks and crannies became home to green plants and bright flowers, a favorite comforter graced the bed, and a soft blanket lay across the back of the couch. I would visit the camper in my driveway to drink in the calm and to dream, enjoying the anticipation of travel but not knowing how to drive.

I asked my husband, Bruce, who can literally parallel park a tractor-trailer, to teach me. We went to a nearby parking lot to practice, reminiscent of my teenage years. I discovered, quickly, that backing up a trailer was very different from backing up a car. Turn the wheels to the right and the towed vehicle goes left. Turn the wheels to the left and the towed vehicle turns right.

My husband and I have very different teaching and learning styles. My husband wanted to teach me technique, and I wanted to know why. We finished our first driving lesson with me in frustrated tears and my husband in frustrated silence, not knowing how to teach me what I couldn’t seem to learn.

Back to the parking lot we went for Lesson #2. This time Bruce taught me the trick of placing my hands on the bottom of the steering wheel rather than at the top. Then he told me to move my hands in the direction I wanted the camper to go. Finally, I had instructions I could follow! Lesson #2 went a bit better, but I had to think through every move, never knowing how much, or how little, I needed to turn the wheel. And my normally patient husband, who has been driving towed vehicles since his teens, simply couldn’t understand why something so easy for him was proving to be so difficult for me.

Lessons #3 – 5 weren’t much better. Not being able to master something quickly was a new and humbling experience. My tears came easily and often. I began to see my dream slipping away. But my husband loves me, and neither of us gives up easily. We kept at it, over and over again, forgiving each other’s frustrated outbursts, trying hard not to say anything we would later regret.

I found myself thinking about backing up my trailer at odd moments of the day, desperate to integrate technique with intuitive knowing. With my husband beside me, I could follow his instructions and back my camper into a space. But I needed to do it alone if I was ever going to live my dream.

I was wandering through a big box store mulling over my inability to control the camper when suddenly I had a brilliant idea – toy trucks! If I could play with a toy truck and trailer, I believed I would see how the trailer moves in response to the truck. I raced over to the toy section and began scouring the shelves until I found what I was looking for – a small green truck and trailer with “Hot Wheels” written on the side. Feeling a bit sheepish buying a toy truck for myself, I paid for it and took it home.

As soon as I got home I began to play with my truck. I pushed it backwards across my kitchen table and noticed how both pieces moved. I slowly turned the truck to the right – and to my surprise – the trailer moved left – just as my husband had claimed. I moved it to the left and yup – the trailer turned to the right. I discovered how I needed to move the truck to straighten out the trailer, just as I would need to do when backing into a campground space. After weeks of practicing in parking lots, my brain finally understood what my arms needed to do. One more visit to an empty parking lot confirmed that something had clicked.

I felt ready to venture out on my own. For my first solo journey I found a farm about 15 miles from my house that allowed a handful of campers to stay overnight. I knew the route well, which gave me some confidence. Before leaving, I reached out to the owner and explained I was a new driver and was assured that access to the site would be easy. And off I went.

As I drove down my long driveway pulling my camper alone for the very first time, tears of fear and uncertainty were streaming down my face. I clutched the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles were white. I had to remind myself to breathe. I played soft and soothing harp music on my radio, the most peaceful music I could find, and forced myself to relax, continue breathing, and focus on the quiet music instead of my fear. Slowly I turned out of my driveway and onto the road.

I drove carefully to the farm, constantly checking my rearview mirror, convinced that at any moment the trailer would detach. The owner met me when I arrived and gave me directions to my site. He told me to follow the dirt road through the cornfields until I came to a numbered marker indicating my turn. Feeling confident, I drove deeper into the farm just as it started to rain.

I cautiously drove over the bumpy and rutted road, with corn growing on either side, looking for the site number sign. The cornfields ended, the road began to dip downwards, and I found myself driving through woods. Unexpectedly, the road came to an end at a fence. I could not go forward and there was nowhere to turn around. I was stuck at the bottom of a hill, in the rain, on a dirt road that was quickly turning into mud. My only option was to back up that wet hill using a skill I had barely learned, let alone mastered – in the rain.

I began backing up slowly, uncertain if the trailer was going in the same direction as my car. So every few feet I hopped out of my car to confirm that I was still going straight. My wheels started to spin on the slippery mud as I tried to drive backwards up a hill in the rain, and I realized that skinny farm roads were very different from parking lots.

I tried, and I tried, and I tried some more. I was able to back up far enough to get out of the woods, but now I had cornfields on either side of me and I was backing up far from straight. With every foot I traveled I was getting closer and closer to running over the farmer’s corn. The rain was coming down harder. The road was getting more slippery. Finally I admitted defeat and called my husband. Then I waited dejectedly, crying hot tears, for him to rescue me. When he arrived, he graciously reassured me that it was a genuinely difficult situation and many experienced drivers would have struggled too. Bruce easily backed up the camper, and together we found the missed turn. Then he left me to enjoy several nights of finally living my dream, my only company being the fireflies and my dog.

Learning continued to humble me. Twice I pulled into thickly wooded campgrounds and became wedged between trees, jackknifing my camper, unable to move forward or back. Another time, I forgot to stabilize the wheels, and the camper rolled off its supporting block, yanking out the electric line. Then there was the improperly attached sewer hose spilling raw sewage over my shoes and onto the ground. And finally, while turning into a stranger’s driveway too tightly, I knocked down his newly installed and very expensive fence, punching a hole in the side of my camper and shearing off that same sewer outlet, sending sewer water across his driveway as he watched. This wasn’t quite the peaceful solitude I had envisioned when I dreamed of camping alone.

But then there were the moments of pure happiness – watching sunrises and sunsets. Listening to crickets and birds. Cooking gourmet meals in my tiny camper kitchen and outdoors on my grill. Feeling the peace that comes from temporarily stepping out of the busyness of life. Enjoying the solitude of no schedules and no demands – time to simply be, to create, to walk, to reflect, to meditate, and to write.

Looking back, I smile at the tears, the mud, the jackknifed trailer, the spilled sewer hose, and the expensive fence. At the time they felt like failures. Now they feel like tuition.

Dreams rarely ask only for desire. They ask for humility. For persistence. For the willingness to become awkward before they arrive.

Every time I pull my little camper into a quiet campsite, I remember that none of those moments were obstacles to my dream. They were simply the price of admission.

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I attended a concert last week by Paul Simon, who is actively touring on his Quiet Celebration Tour. But this is not a reflection on Paul Simon. This is a reflection on all of us, and the inevitability of change. This is not an essay on loss. This is an essay on choosing how we wish to be seen and what happens when a person keeps showing up after the version of themselves that had been known and loved is gone.

It was the start of a beautiful night under the stars, sharing the lush green lawns and majestic trees of Tanglewood with a sold-out crowd, all anticipating the arrival of a musical legend. Tanglewood invites lavish picnics and people take picnicking at Tanglewood seriously, bringing elaborate dining accompaniments like candelabras, crystal champagne flutes, cloth-covered tables, and gourmet meals. There’s always an air of expectation, pleasure, joy, and excitement as people wait for a show to begin. Tonight was no exception as we waited for Paul Simon at the second of three sold-out shows.

This concert was described as slower, more contemplative, acoustic, and reflective, as befitting an 84-year-old performer looking back upon a long career. He opened with his newest piece, Seven Psalms, a quiet, meditative reflection on life, mortality, faith, and what remains when the old forms start to change. He wasn’t looking to recreate the past. Rather, we were being invited to intimately join him in his present. We were not being asked to remember who he had been. We were being asked to see him as he is now.

His voice was no longer the voice that I remembered. The sweetness, ease, and fluidity that once defined his music were largely gone. His range was limited. Notes that once seemed to have floated easily seemed difficult to hold. There were moments when I felt uncomfortable, not because I was disappointed, but because I could feel the distance between the artist I had come expecting to hear and the man standing before us now. But I kept watching, because something more important was taking shape. He was not asking to be remembered. He was asking to be received.

He was met with thunderous applause after every shaky delivery of familiar songs, even though the performance bore little resemblance to what it had once been. The audience loved this aging performer who was not willing to stop simply because he had changed, and who was unwilling to hide because aging said he should.

The Paul Simon of memory was slipping away. The voice was slipping away. The range was slipping away. The smoothness and ease were slipping away. Perhaps even the audience’s expectations were slipping away as the concert unfolded. But something else arrived in its place.

Not the old brilliance. Something more tender. And that is why this is not an essay about Paul Simon. This is an essay about the willingness to be seen as we are, not as we may think the world expects us to be.

Every human is going to have their own version of “slip sliding away.” Every human will eventually become unrecognizable to some earlier version of themselves. The body changes. The capacities change. Roles change. The face in the mirror changes. The voice – literal or metaphorical – changes. But when the familiar slips away, especially due to age, do we vanish, apologize, or pretend – or do we allow ourselves to be witnessed as we’ve become?

A few weeks ago, in an essay called Clap Like You Mean It, I wrote about young children at a dance recital. I irreverently called it The School for Less Than Perfect Children. What moved me was not their polish, but the way the school celebrated self-expression over perfection, showcasing children who did not yet know they needed to hide. Paul Simon represented the adult version of little children at a dance recital, showing us what it looks like to become unashamed once again. Not because nothing had been lost. But because loss was no longer a reason to hide and one can still sing even though the music has changed.

We are all sliding away from something that may have once been precious, or sliding away from the need to be remembered as we once were. But not everything slipping away is a loss. Sometimes slipping away opens the door for us to discover something new that we could not have seen before. The question becomes, will we grasp for what had been but can no longer be? Or will we choose to slide into the freedom to be something new?

I am slip slidin’ away too. Away from the face I once saw in photographs. Away from the body that once moved through the world with youthful ease. Away from the body that has carried me through every chapter of my life, a body that has known grief, love, childbirth, ceremony, labor, illness, healing, pleasure, and becoming. Away from the illusion that beauty, sensuality, power, or permission only belongs to the young. But I am not sliding into disappearance. I am sliding into a deeper belonging to myself. I no longer believe I need to hide simply because my body no longer resembles that of a younger woman.

Maybe the grace of aging is not that we stop slip slidin’ away. Maybe the grace of aging is that we stop believing that aging comes with regret, embarrassment, fear, and shame. Maybe the grace of aging is that we stop asking to be seen as we once were, allowing ourselves to be received exactly as we are.

Paul Simon may not have delivered the voice we all came to hear. But perhaps he delivered something much more rare – the sight of a human being willing to stand inside the truth of who he had become. And the audience rose to meet him there.

Maybe that is the invitation for all of us as we slip away from former versions of ourselves -

Not to try to get it back.

Not to vanish.

Not to apologize.

Not to pretend.

And certainly not to give up.

But to remain standing in the light, changed and still changing, and allow ourselves to be received.

And perhaps that is what Paul Simon offered us that night - not the voice we remembered, but the courage to stand before us in the voice that was there.

May we each find the grace to do the same - to stand in the light of who we have become, feeling comfortable to sing a new song.

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Can the child within my heart rise above?

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?

Can I handle the seasons of my life?

But time makes you bolder

Even children get older

And I’m getting older, too.

~ Stevie Nicks

I do not remember what I had been accused of doing. I only remember the accusation and knowing within every part of me that it was absolutely not true.

A critical step-parent hurled words at me meant to diminish, then pushed me into my bedroom and slammed the door. I stood before the mirror with tears streaming down my face, my small hands clenched into furious fists at my sides. Powerless to defend myself to the person on the other side of the door, I stamped my foot and said to my reflection, over and over again, “I’m not that way! I’m not that way!”

No one heard me. No one came to defend me. No one came to reassure me. No one asked what had happened. But something inside me woke up that day and refused to surrender to another person’s judgment of who I was. I think I remember that incident so clearly, although it was one of countless others, because that was the night the frightened little girl began her journey toward claiming her own truth.

I spent my childhood living in the uncertainty of a swiftly negative response. I was always listening for the shift in tone, the angry footsteps, the accusations, the explosion – knowing that something negative would eventually arrive, but never knowing when, why, or what form it would take. My nervous system learned that waiting was not neutral. That the absence of conflict was not the same as being safe. Silence simply meant that danger was gathering and would eventually arrive.

But the seasons, they go ‘round and ‘round, and life has an uncanny way of showing us where we stand. Within the space of a single week, I received two unexpected messages from two people with whom I had shared long and meaningful relationships, and whose opinions and approval once carried considerable weight in my life. The circumstances surrounding each were entirely different, but the underlying experience was eerily familiar. Both had reached conclusions about me without first asking what was true. Once again, I found myself being told who I was by someone who had never stopped to inquire.

There was the unmistakable chill beneath the words that they sent, a tone that expressed displeasure and accusation, with the subtle embedded threat that warned me to be careful about displeasing them. For a woman whose childhood taught her that another person’s anger would bring unpredictable consequences, this was especially potent. Life had brought me back to familiar terrain twice in one week.

In the past I would have been devastated – believing I had done something wrong and needed to correct. In the past, I believed I was responsible for the emotional well-being of another, and that it was up to me to restore the balance. In the past, I would have felt the need to defend myself and prove I was not that. In the past, I would have stood in front of them pleading, “Please ask me. Please understand me. Please see that I am good.” But this time, to my surprise, my wound was no longer the first voice to respond.

I did not become defensive. I did not immediately begin searching myself for the hidden offense. I did not ask myself, “What did I do? How had I been misunderstood? How could I explain myself to restore balance?” Instead, I considered each message carefully, and allowed each to tell me a deeper story, a story about the senders, rather than a story about me, leading me to calculate whether the value of the relationship justified the cost.

For the first time in my life, another person’s displeasure did not feel like proof that I had done something wrong. I was proud of how calmly I responded to each sender, until my body reminded me that sending the message was not the part that I feared. What my body feared was the waiting for the response it knew would eventually come. Waiting was never empty in my childhood. Waiting was the time when danger picked up steam. Within the container of the same circumstances, I discovered how much I had healed, and how much I had not.

Upon receiving these messages I ran through many emotions -

Shock,

Anger,

Fear,

Grief,

Hurt,

Disappointment,

Sadness,

Choice,

Liberation.

These responses became the information needed to answer the question of “If this is how someone treats me, is that behavior welcome in my life?” Before, I would have explained, defended, corrected, restored, and earned the relationship back. This time, however, when I asked that question, the answer was, “No.”

But this is not a story about a conflict between me and others. This is a story about what happens when a woman who spent her childhood trying to prove her innocence finally stopped presenting her case. It’s a story about a woman who realizes that her identity is no longer contingent upon someone else’s assessment. And it’s also a story about the sadness that is felt when realizing that relationships are not always as they were understood to be.

Something radically different is unfolding. I no longer need to enter into another’s version of reality and defend my way out. That does not mean I am incapable of wrongdoing or beyond self-examination. But the change is that I am no longer assuming that another person’s displeasure with me proves there must be a hidden failure. I can consider the evidence honestly and conclude that the communication is the interpretation of another and their interpretation does not mean it is true. And then I can use that interpretation as information – not about my worth, but about the capacity of another to see me accurately and fairly, using that information to decide if the value of the relationship is worth carrying forward.

Through two seemingly unrelated interactions I realized that the harsh emotional tone of another doesn’t dictate the emotional tone of my response. Someone can be short with me, and I don’t have to become guarded. Someone can withdraw warmth, and I don’t need to chase it, or retaliate by withdrawing mine. Someone can communicate disapproval, and I don’t have to prove my worthiness, demand an explanation, or enter the emotional field they have created. I finally realized, through these interactions, that I have choice, and I can remain myself.

The sacred curriculum called Life is rarely easy. It asks us to feel what we once avoided, to recognize patterns we once chose to defend, to grieve what cannot be saved, and to choose ourselves without being bitter. The journey does not mean that the child within is so healed that she never appears again. It means recognizing that when the old wounds appear, we can say, “I am no longer that, and I can navigate the situation from who I have become, not as who I used to be.” The woman I have become can notice the frightened child and say, “I know you are afraid and I understand why. But that was then, and this is now. And now, you are no longer trapped. You are no longer powerless. And uncertainty is not the same thing as danger, even if your body remembers them as being the same.”

Healing is not always pretty or neat. Sometimes healing simply means allowing ourselves to mourn the beautiful things that could have been, while no longer volunteering to be diminished in order to have them.

The teaching in this story is not that I have become too strong to hurt. The greater teaching is that I can be hurt without abandoning myself. I can be judged without having to defend myself. I can understand the limitations of another without feeling an obligation to respond. I can remain tender, loving, and fully myself – and still walk away.

Healing is not a final destination. We move through life, and each season brings us into contact with something old, and the opportunity to bring to the old something new – a greater capacity, a broader perspective, and the tenderness and understanding that comes with maturity. And that tenderness belongs not only to the child who was hurt, but to the woman who has learned how to hold her. The landscape may seem familiar at times. But I am learning that the traveler has changed.

Healing is not the promise that the frightened child will never be frightened again, or that she will be able to rise above her fear. Healing is the discovery that when she is afraid – the woman I have become can reach down and take her hand.

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By Jude Smith

Essays, reflections, and meditations on living authentically and meeting life as a sacred curriculum.

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Om Manhe Padme Hum

The Jewel is in the Lotus

I was listening to an online course when the teacher casually said something that stopped me cold.

She said her superpower was joy.

Not resilience.
Not strength.
Not wisdom.

Joy.

And something inside me immediately tightened as I realized I could not easily recall moments of pure joy. I had spent a lifetime becoming capable, responsible, resilient, and successful. I had learned how to survive, function, achieve, and care deeply for others. But somewhere along the way, I had lost access to simple joy.

That realization felt unsettling. When had I lost the ability to experience joy – and why?

My thoughts turned to memories of the first 5 years of my life. I could recall joyous moments – feeling safe within my family, being cherished as the first grandchild, picking wildflowers with my mother in a field awash with color, the smell of apple pie baking and the memory of standing on a stool at the kitchen counter, with as much flour in my hair as in the pie. I remembered my bedroom with yellow walls and a wallpaper border of flowers, and a backyard awash with tulips. I remembered riding in a car, singing silly songs. And I remembered the night my father sat on the edge of my bed, struggling to tell me that Mommy had gone to heaven, but would continue to love me from afar.

The wicked stepmother came 8 months later – stepping into life with two young and needy motherless children, taking on a role she was not prepared to take. My father escaped by spending long hours away from home, while my stepmother took out her anger on me. In response, certain parts of me became highly developed, while other parts quietly receded, because survival took precedence over joy.

I became extraordinarily skilled at functioning. At reading rooms. At anticipating needs. At being capable.

I became highly empathic, responsible, helpful, and resilient.

Those qualities helped me build a beautiful life. But suddenly I found myself asking, “How much joy had I experienced while living the life that I had carefully nurtured and built?” Because survival skills, when practiced long enough, don’t leave room for joy.

I thought of all the times I had witnessed life from the sidelines, present but not fully engaged. My choice of friends. My choice of entertainment. My choice of pleasure. My choice of career. My circle of friends was small, but safe. My pleasures, often solitary. I loved music, but stayed seated when my body wanted to move. I remembered lots of successes, lots of fulfillment, lots of pleasure, lots of gratitude. But joy….. Joy wasn’t quite there.

I have learned to choose openness instead of bitterness. Compassion instead of cruelty. I learned to create coherence out of chaos and trust my heart enough to follow it.

I learned how to love people deeply and sincerely. I learned how to create safety for myself. I learned how to create safety for others. I learned how to soften without collapsing.

But now I’m learning that although I have lived a meaningful, loving, spiritually rich life, there are chambers of aliveness within me that have remained closed. I have survived beautifully and well, some would say even thrived, and for many, that would be enough. But I am determined to experience life fully, and now I’m questioning - have I fully learned how to live?

Joy has escaped me. Joy is unguarded, requiring the nervous system to be open and relaxed. Joy requires a deep exhale, a deeper surrender, a deep embodiment, a deep permission to live life without guarding against its loss. But just like the lotus flower, programmed to move towards the light when the conditions are right, my life has become stable enough, coherent enough, loving enough, meaningful enough, that my soul can finally ask – “What would life feel like if I knew I could fully trust it enough to relax?” Because now I’m realizing that escaping the dark is not the same thing as living in the light, and just like the lotus flower, I find myself asking, “Can I actually allow myself to bloom?”

Life has been good. I have experienced flashes of joy. Moments created by tiny ruptures in control. An unexpected laugh or giggle. A moment in nature. Music. A puppy. My grandchildren. For just a moment, I forget myself, but then almost immediately my warning system re-engages. Not because I’m incapable of joy. But because I have mistaken vigilance for safety for so long.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon puttering in my kitchen. It was a beautiful sunny day. My deck was awash in colorful flowers. I had flocks of loudly chirping birds taking turns at my large feeders. I had two jars of freshly made kombucha fermenting on my counter, and dinner sending mouth-watering aromas from my oven. It was one of those moments when everything was aligned. And at that moment, I had the realization – this is joy. It wasn’t jumping up and down ecstasy, nor was it laughing giddiness. It was the simple, but profound, pleasure of joy.

Joy was the embodied knowing that all was well, that all was in order within my world. It was recognizing that I was relaxed and engaged in simple activities that fed my soul. That my eyes, nose, and ears were awash in sensations that delighted me. In that moment, I knew joy. Quiet, internalized joy. In that moment, cooking in my kitchen deepened from being a pleasant afternoon, to something sacred. A pleasant life sustains. A consciously inhabited life nourishes the soul.

I suspect many of us are unknowingly standing in the middle of beautiful moments while internally rushing onwards to the next. And rushing through life is very different from living it.

My longing for “more” is not evidence that I have failed, or that I have not healed. My longing for more is evidence that my soul naturally yearns to unfold towards more light. The joy I felt while puttering in my kitchen on a sunny day was not proof that I had finally arrived. It was proof that my system was capable of relaxing enough to recognize and receive the gifts that were already here.

Perhaps that is what the lotus has been teaching all along. Not that there is some final destination waiting at the top of a long climb, but that each time it rises towards the light, it becomes a little more capable of opening. Like the lotus, I keep rising, not because anything is missing, but because life is inviting me to fully bloom.

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By Jude Smith

Essays, reflections, and meditations on living authentically and meeting life as a sacred curriculum.

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There are two dance schools in town.

There is the older, more established school that creates ballerinas. My eldest granddaughter attended that school when she was four. They spent months perfecting the choreography. The costumes were expensive. The recital was held in a professional, state-of-the-art theater. Every hair was in place. The makeup was perfect.

And my granddaughter, who loved to dance, hated every minute of it.

She refused to go back.

Yesterday, I attended the first recital of my youngest granddaughter. She attends what I have come to think of as the School for Less Than Perfect Children.

One school teaches children how to dance. This one teaches them how to be themselves.

The recital was held in a high school auditorium that had seen better days. The costumes were a bit homegrown. The children were barefoot. Hair was slightly awry. Makeup was less than perfect.

As we stood in the rain, huddled under umbrellas, waiting for the doors to open, there was an air of expectant excitement in the crowd. My four-year-old granddaughter, normally shy and a bit timid, grabbed my hand and urged me to move faster when they finally let us in.

The house was packed with proud, expectant, slightly anxious parents and grandparents waiting for the show to begin.

For many families, mine included, this was the first time their young child would be stepping onto a stage alone, showing up in the world without a parent or grandparent holding their hand.

I imagine many of us were holding the same silent question: Will my child be okay?

The recital was divided into three shows by age, and this was the youngest group: one hundred fledglings, ages three to eight.

At the appointed hour, the owner of the dance school came on stage like a loving field commander of childhood – T-shirt, sweats, dressed not to impress, but to do the hard work of tending unpolished children.

She commanded the stage.

She told the packed crowd how proud she was of these children, how hard they had worked, how much progress they had made. Then she stopped, put one hand on her hip, wagged her finger at the audience, and sternly told us, “I expect you to clap like you mean it!” because these children deserved nothing less.

And then the first line of shy, awkward, mostly uncoordinated young children was led onto the stage.

Barefoot.
Uneven.
Uncoordinated.
Trying.
Forgetting.
Remembering.
Looking around.
Feeling brave.
Being seen.

Most of the children looked a bit wild-eyed as they stared out at an audience staring back at them. They were reminded where to stand. More than once, a wayward child was physically picked up and moved to the correct spot.

As each new piece of music began, the pattern was the same: a moment of hesitation, and then the familiar music took over.

Some children danced joyously.

Some hesitatingly.

Some shyly.

Some fearfully.

And some were so overwhelmed by the experience that they did not move at all.

But it was the little girl with dark pigtails and thick glasses who undid me.

She had Down syndrome. But there was no need to pretend we did not notice, because she was not asking to be noticed for that.

She knew all the steps. She danced with her whole body, joyously and freely, the stage belonging to her as much as to anyone else. She was happy to be there. She belonged. No asterisk. No apology. No diminished expectations. Just a child dancing. And when she had clearly had enough, she turned toward her mother in the front row and signed that she was done, even though the music had not yet stopped.

That was when my tears came.

I cry easily, so my tears did not surprise me. But then I looked at my daughter, and she was crying too. And when I turned to my husband and saw him blinking hard, trying to hold himself together, I understood that something important was being witnessed on that stage.

I cried as one group after another of children barely beyond toddlerhood came onto the stage.

There was the little girl so overwhelmed that she stood motionless in the middle of the stage, her fingers in her mouth, while her classmates danced around her.

There was the boy who could not do a somersault until his teacher came on stage and gently rolled him over — to thunderous applause.

There were the children who could not quite do cartwheels, but put their hands down and hopped instead, as the audience cheered them on.

There were the children who went left when everyone else went right.

There were the children who stopped mid-dance to admonish their classmates for doing the step wrong.

And there were the children who had no idea what came next and did not seem to care. They were just having fun.

At one point, I turned and looked at the audience.

Many were wiping away tears.

But…. Why were we crying?

On the surface, nothing “big” had happened.

No virtuosic performance.
No polished production.
No dramatic story.
No obvious tear-jerker.

Just a line of small, awkward, barefoot children walking onto a worn high school stage.

And yet the tears came.

We were witnessing innocence being protected rather than corrected. We were feeling the tenderness of children before the world had fully taught them to hide – children being invited into the full dignity of being seen.

And maybe we cried because something in the room bypassed the intellect and went straight to the heart: This is how it should be. When did that stop being true for me?

I cried for the raw beauty of what I was witnessing.

I cried for my older granddaughter, now eight, who loves to dance but hated being shaped into performance, and who is already measuring herself against her peers.

I cried for the child I once was.

I cried from the relief of seeing innocence not exploited, not polished, not compared — but welcomed.

In that auditorium, we were watching human beings at the beginning of becoming — still awkward, still exposed, still unhidden — stepping into visibility before they had learned to hide.

And when the room responded with real applause, the adults were not just clapping for a dance. They were affirming something much deeper:

We see you as you are.
You can be imperfect and still be celebrated.
You can belong before you are polished.
You can take your place before you are ready.

None of these children were pretending to be other than they were. And we cried because we knew, as adults, that pretending came with a cost.

The tears in that auditorium were communal, elicited by barefoot, unedited children who were not polished enough to protect us from feeling them. We remembered the beauty of such innocence, and the cost when it’s lost.

As adults, we have learned how to stand on the stage of life and appear composed. We have learned to say the right thing. Do the right thing. Meet expectations. Play the game. But perhaps, underneath, there still exists in each of us a frightened child, fingers in mouth, trying to self-soothe in a world that feels too much.

So why did we cry? We cried from the purity of innocence and the ache of knowing how temporary it can be.

But does it have to be that way?

Yes, innocence tends to be temporary.

Yes, the world teaches children to edit and hide.

But there are adults determined to delay that lesson.

And perhaps our task is to celebrate anyone willing to be seen.

So when you see someone brave enough, young enough, innocent enough, awkward enough, unpolished enough to stand before you as they are – clap like you mean it.

Because maybe, just maybe, if you clap like you mean it, others will learn there is no need to hide.

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“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

~ Anais Nin

I have been feeling a growing restlessness. Old forms of expression no longer feel fully satisfying. Years of writings saved, but unpublished, are calling for exposure. But sharing my voice publicly is not a small pivot. It is transformation from private musings and reflections to public embodiment. After a lifetime of hiding, pretending to be less than rather than more, I am scared.

Private reflections are protected. They are raw and experiential. Intimate. Hidden. And forgiving if my thoughts don’t stand the test of time. Public embodiment asks something different of me. It asks for coherence under public scrutiny. Because once my voice becomes public I can no longer retreat into invisibility without feeling the cost of remaining tightly curled into a bud.

In the words of poet e e cummings – “it takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” It has taken courage to examine myself truthfully, and even more courage to share what I find. I am revealing my humanity, a humanity that is not always neatly packaged, not always pretty, does not always have the answers, and sometimes struggles to land. Revealing my humanity requires honesty, depth, discernment, presence, emotional literacy, and the courage to examine my struggles and claim my successes. But in so doing, you may see yourself in me, and together we can step more boldly into our fullness. And as I’m stepping into the third act of my life, I’m still becoming who I really am.

Twenty years ago I attended a workshop that opened the door to my becoming. In the opening moments the facilitator read the words of Marianne Williamson from her poem, Our Deepest Fear:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,

“Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?”

Upon hearing those words, gut-wrenching sobs erupted from somewhere I did not yet understand. My embarrassment over my messy crying was not enough to stop them. They came from a soul-level yearning I did not know I carried.

Something inside of me knew –

The fear,

The concealment,

The longing,

The future unfolding,

The cost of shrinking,

and the inevitability of the emergence – long before my conscious mind could articulate the experience. I have spent twenty years exploring what those sobs have meant.

My body instantly recognized the battlefield of my childhood wounds - a childhood where being seen was dangerous, and where strength only unleashed the power of another. I learned to hide, to shrink, to turn away, to live in the safety of my inner world.

But I knew. I knew the day would come when I could no longer remain hidden.

For twenty years my mind, disguised as humility, has whispered, “If I do not fully reveal my magnitude, I will remain safe.” But the day has arrived when protection feels stifling, and the urge to sing my own song feels too overwhelming to ignore.

Twenty years ago I had a dream. I was alone in an attic – secluded, safe, and protected. Although safe, it was limiting and lifeless, and I had explored every inch. At the back of the attic was a staircase, leading to the freedom of a bigger world. I yearned to explore that world, but I knew there was a lion at the bottom of the stairwell guarding the door to freedom and preventing me from leaving. Passing beyond that lion seemed impossible, and I resigned myself to stay where I was.

Days passed and my boredom and yearning to escape the confines of my safety became so overwhelming that I was willing to risk the danger of the lion. To stay where I was, locked in the safe nothingness of the attic, was more than I could bear. I knew the risk of annihilation was worth taking for the possibility of more.

Very slowly I opened the attic door at the top of the stairs. It was a long and curving staircase and I could not see the bottom. I pressed myself close to the wall, trying to make myself as small as possible as I slowly inched my way down the stairs. Step by step I crept downward, unable to see the lion but able to hear it sleeping at the bottom of the stairs.

As I reached the lowest steps, holding my breath so as not to wake the lion, I finally saw the creature that had kept me locked in the safety of my emptiness. And what did I see? Not the ferocious lion I had imagined for all those years – but a small kitten sleeping peacefully at the bottom of the stairs. I stepped over the harmless creature and walked out the door.

Hiding has served its purpose. It has allowed me to develop

discernment,

integrity,

coherence,

humility,

wisdom,

groundedness,

and emotional depth.

But just like in my dream, the balance is shifting. The constriction that once protected me has become painful. And that is the crossroads upon which I stand.

My old forms of living no longer feel satisfying. A quiet restlessness has emerged. My work and avenues of self-expression no longer feel enough. My archives of unpublished writings, meditations, teachings, and recordings are weighing on me. Shrinking has become stifling, and the tension between depth and humility born of fear is becoming unbearable. The inner season is changing.

I am currently on retreat in my little camper, a refuge from the responsibilities of life. It’s where I feel nurtured, soothed, and my creativity comes alive. I spend my time in meditation, contemplation, and journaling, exploring the questions that always seem to appear.

Yesterday I grabbed one of the many black and white composition books I like to use when I write, choosing it simply because it had more blank pages remaining than the others. I poured out my frustrations and yearnings. Pausing in my writing, I became curious about what else I had explored in this notebook and was taken aback to discover it was the same one I had used when processing the ending of the life of my beloved border collie mix, Sage, only a few months before.

Sage came to me early in my professional journey and was beside me during every client meeting, every phone call, every class I taught, every shamanic journey I facilitated. He sat with quiet presence, and his steadiness steadied me as I offered that same steadiness to others.

It was while on my yearly retreat to Cape Cod last fall that I knew Sage was dying. I had known that he was slowing down. I knew that he was getting older. I knew that his time with me was limited. But it was the morning after we arrived, when he looked sleepily up at me from his bed on the floor but didn’t rise, that I knew.

I was devastated. I could not imagine life without my beloved companion, this gentle soul who had walked beside me, shared my breath, my silence, my laughter, my becoming. He walked beside me along the beaches. Hiked beside me through the woods. He saw into my eyes with knowing.

With my hands resting on his tired body, I meditated, wrote, and prayed. I moved through my disbelief, into grief, into denial, finally resting in the peace that transcends understanding. And from that place, I felt the truth. I felt Sage’s essence. I felt his soft brown eyes. I remembered his smile, so radiant that strangers often stopped to comment on his joy. I remembered his delight running on the beach, with the wind ruffling his ears. And I embraced his calmness while lying motionless next to the many clients with whom I was doing healing work. I breathed in his steadiness, his sensitivity, and his ability to see into one’s heart. I honored his embodiment of his name. Sage the wise one. Sage the purifier. Sage the releaser of that which no longer serves.

It was Sage who was with me when I was uncertain. It was Sage who witnessed my growth. It was Sage who held a mirror steady until I could finally see myself. But I knew his stewardship was complete, and that he had served me well. I knew that moving on was not betrayal, but rather, moving on was the final expression of care. Sage came to earth to help me to grow, and letting him go would be my final act of love. I gave Sage, a wounded little shelter dog, security, love, honor, and respect. And Sage? Sage gave me myself.

My heart broke at the thought of letting him go. I felt uncertain that I could navigate the complexities of my world on my own. But just as no one truly knows if they can ride a bicycle while the training wheels are still on, I also knew the only way to experience my sovereignty was to stand on my own.

Sage brought me to this crossroads, and it feels no accident that I found his writing in the same notebook I had randomly grabbed for this trip. I’m still feeling shaky as I attempt to navigate life alone. But I also suspect that Sage knew I would eventually move beyond my shakiness and learn to spread my wings and fly.

Perhaps that is what standing at the crossroads truly means. Not certainty. Not fearlessness. But simply reaching the moment when the pain of remaining hidden becomes greater than the fear of being seen.

And so here I stand. Not knowing where this road will lead me. Not fully arrived. Not fully certain. Not quite sure what I will share. But there is a voice within me that wants to be heard, and for the first time, in a very long time, I don’t wish to turn back.

Thank you for reading The Art of Being Human. If this piece spoke to you, I’d be honored to have you subscribe or share, so that we may continue to walk this path together.

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While preparing to share my writing with a wider audience, I stumbled across a prayer I had written during a season of profound transition. I was tickled to discover that this unexpected breadcrumb once again had relevance. As an Interfaith minister, I thought it was appropriate to begin this new endeavor with a blessing.

I invite you to step into stillness with me, as together we create a sacred container to explore the art of being human through stories, meditations, reflections, and essays.

Welcome. I am glad that you are here.

Reflections from the Threshold

A Prayer for Becoming

I stand at the quiet edge of my own becoming.

What once served me has done its sacred work,

And now the wisdom that once flowed through others

Awakens within me.

I honor all that has brought me here –

Every mentor, every method, every name.

I release them with gratitude,

Knowing that the essence they pointed to

Now lives within me.

I am no longer seeking permission to be who I am.

I am the minister, the teacher, the counselor, the guide.

Through stillness and surrender,

I become the instrument of the Divine.

Through authenticity,

I become the lesson itself.

Today, I let life breathe me open.

I teach by my presence.

I serve by being.

I lead by listening.

May life continue to reveal

The form that best serves love.

May I continue to walk through life,

As the truest expression of who I have always been.

Time to Sing My Own Song

My father died last week.

While going through his papers, I came across an unexpected gift — a short reflection entitled, What I Want to Leave My Children. I’d like to share it with you.

I think it is important to enjoy life.
Be grateful for all the good things.
And deal with your head held high,
With all the unpleasant things.

Life is a balance
of both good and bad events,
But I think the good events
Far outweigh the bad.

Enjoy the beauty of nature —
The blue skies,
The warm sun,
And the green trees.
Be grateful, and appreciate being alive.

Speak to God every day,
And say, “Thank you for my life.”

Be honest and moral,
(even when no one is looking).

And as my mother would always say,
“Always do the right thing.”

Love,
Dad

My Dad was gone.

And even though our roles had changed and I had become the parent, somewhere inside me I was still seven years old, and I was going to miss my Daddy.

Through his simple words, my father left a legacy. He wanted to be remembered. He wanted to leave us with something meaningful. He wanted us to know that his life mattered, that life mattered, and that he hoped we would appreciate it just as he did.

And suddenly I found myself asking:
What is my legacy?
How will I be remembered?
What am I going to leave behind?

With the passing of my Dad, I instantly became the family matriarch. I began to feel my own mortality in a new way. Not with fear, but with clarity. The realization that time is not guaranteed. That if I am going to leave something meaningful behind, I had better begin.

The only thing stopping me is the fear that no one will care.

And so… here I am.

A student of the Art of Being Human.

I have been asking the questions:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
How can I live with greater ease?
for as long as I can remember.

Over a lifetime of living, loving, grieving, failing, healing, questioning, and beginning again, I have searched for those answers. And the funny thing is — the answers have changed over time.

Life itself became the teacher.

I have come to see life as a sacred curriculum — one filled with experiences that shape us, challenge us, humble us, break us open, and ultimately invite us into deeper authenticity.

I have learned simple truths.
Easy to speak.
Much harder to live.

Truths found beneath many wisdom traditions, regardless of the language, metaphors, or rituals used to express them. Because beneath all the things that separate us lives the common bond of our shared humanity.

I have come to learn.
I have come to teach.
I have come to receive.
I have come to give.

And perhaps now, I have come to share.

My father left behind a few pages of wisdom for his children. In his own way, he was saying:
“This is how I saw life.
These are the things that mattered to me.”

I wish to do the same.

Not because I have everything figured out.
Not because I have arrived.
But because I have lived.
And what I have learned along the way feels too meaningful to keep entirely to myself.

I have spent much of my life helping others navigate this sacred curriculum called being human. Celebrating. At times lamenting. Sometimes grieving. Always growing.

And now I find myself feeling the pull to step out a little more boldly, to venture beyond the privacy of my own journals and conversations, and to begin recording the breadcrumbs I have followed along the way.

Because unlike my Dad…

I have not yet finished singing my own song.

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Thank you for reading The Art of Being Human.

If this piece spoke to you, I’d be honored to have you subscribe

and continue walking this path with me.