“Letting go isn’t one step but many. Its a winding, spiraling process that happens on deep levels. And we must begin at the beginning by confronting our ambivalence.”
Sue Monk Kidd
The sun is about to dip behind the trees outside our bedroom this afternoon. I hear it beckoning me to sit in its warm spring rays of hope while I envision the woman I so desperately long to be, as has been my habit every day about this hour. The sun always leaves me too early though, and I am left to ponder and piece together these profound images I keep seeing of myself in the sparkling, jumpy shadows cast by dancing leaves.
Already I am dreaming of piling in the van with my family after dinner and watching the sun cross the finish line on the horizon, gawking as it goes beyond my sight in a burst of flaming orange hues.
There’s been a strong desire in me lately to follow the sun’s path each day. I want to find its warmth and my place beneath its raging brightness. When it moves from our forest encircled plot of land, I mourn a little and then notice my mind drifting to thoughts of how I might find it before darkness throws her blanket over me.
I am not entirely sure why I am so enamored with the sun these days, but I think it might be related to the pictures popping into my mind of this woman. I don’t know her…yet. But I see different sides of her depending on the time of day and the lighting.
The flashing images feel real and then in a few seconds I’m whipped back to where I actually stand- dead-heading daffodils, winding through the quiet streets on my morning run, or watching my children ride their bikes across the lawn. Back in my life, my skin, my struggles, my season.
There is a fascination brewing within me though.
Who is this woman? Is it me? Maybe in years to come? Or is it someone I merely long to be, someone whose life I secretly envy? Are my imaginations due to lack of sleep or unvoiced longings? Are they something I need to pay more attention to? Is there a buried story or a burgeoning future waiting to be perceived? And why I am given merely a glimpse, a muddled mirage of her?
All these questions stir in me a need to seek out the sun and trace its path across the heavens. The sun, suspended securely in place, gives me perspective. It is I who never stops moving, running, hiding, and seeking.
When I let myself curl up in the coziness of the somber afternoon light steadily slipping behind the trees, I recognize this as my moment of reckoning with reality- how I circle and spin, dip and stretch, go somewhere and nowhere all at once.
The shade sets in now and I surrender my need to know what this life is, who I am becoming, and where I am going. I am ebbing and flowing, disappearing and reappearing, finding and losing, but the sun is burning in place, radiating presence.
The sun awaits my return each day beneath its far-reaching arms, into its faithful and fiery light. It seems to take great delight in guiding me; its sole purpose to center me amidst the unending, circuitous journey called life.
I keep running, persistent in the pursuit, coming to the edges of myself each day while daring to prevail in expectancy for what remains just beyond my reach and understanding. The questions are unceasing as are my repetitive rhythms:
search for the light,
accept the shadows,
and rest in the darkness.
As long as the sun burns in the sky above, I will never stop turning, yearning to discover her, this woman I’m becoming.
