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love

The first day of SUMMER has come and gone. I spent the day with arms wide in an effort to hold the rising emptiness. After a persistent and ardent river of tears, I am finally spent.  My arms ache and the only word to describe this moment is exhaustion.  It is difficult to switch gears from busy MOTHER-teacher to a nameless me, in vacant home, filled with silence day after day?  Owen is in Illinois for the summer and, as is generally the case, I have barely heard a peep. Bodhi spends half of every week with his father.  So summer stretches out across a wide horizon of time. And much of it alone.   This space gives room to see and breathe and feel.  I have come face to face with so many unmet emotions, asking for love. My love.
So I am learning what it means to love myself and hold "me/her" in wide arms.  She has a lot stored up and she needs lots of time to let it out.  I give little gifts and love notes, trying to discover the nuances to loving Angelina.  I hold her in her sadness and I rejoice in her exaltations.
I am discovering what she likes to eat.  (It might seem strange that after 30 years of cooking, I don't  know what I like, but I have spent my time preparing food for others or restricting food for me, monitoring the health and benefits of each morsel.)  Together we try new foods. Some we love. Some sour in the fridge. (Odd discovery number 1: I LOVE RAW SAUERKRAUT!)
In short, I am falling in love with Angelina, a little at a time.  I am doing what I have wanted someone else to do for me all along.  It is new and slow going but I must say that I rather like her.  The television is never on (I have the same two movies that arrived weeks ago from netflix sitting on my table). She is incredibly tidy and efficient. We often listen to the wind, the birds, or gentle chanting.  There are usually candles flickering nearby and flowers on tables, bed stands and counters.    We (angelina and I) go for long walks in the hills behind the house and marvel at the beauty.  We sit together and listen, to the stillness.  There are little alters everywhere.  I like her.  She is still a little afraid of the dark and a bit of a perfectionist. She is beginning to trust my love.  It is a good union- this meeting of self and Self.  And when I go to bed, she still cries for arms that never held her, but I am there and together "I" and "me" will meet the dawn.

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