I was given this book for my birthday back in September. I have been reading it in bits and pieces. It seems I was picking it up when I needed to learn the next part of the journey. It would eerily coincide with what I was feeling or missing that day. It would confirm some path I was on...even if I am not fully aware of it. Today is quiet. It is finally sunny but the world is quiet. Even my pooch has been snoring next to me as much as I am still and will allow her to. It was quiet enough to read for a bit. I am sad the book is finished. I have loved it. I am glad I listened to my close friend when asked to ignore the hype and the glory and just give it a read. It was nothing like I expected and though the theme is close to my heart...it has so many different aspects that can inspire us all. I will miss it though. I mentioned missing my book at dinner last night. I said that I was close and would be sad it was completed to which my little guy responded, "Then read it again". Maybe I will.
I wish I could type all of the different lines that made me tear up or smile. The moments that I read (while sitting in the sunshine waiting for my daughter to get out of school) that helped me to move on. There are so many quotes of brilliance, so many lines of honest and raw truth to tell you about. In the meantime a little something that struck a chord toward the ending:
"My thoughts turn to something I read once, something the Zen Buddhists believe. They say that an oak tree is brought into creation by two forces at the same time. Obviously, there is the acorn from which it all begins, the seed which holds all the promise and potential, which grows into a tree. Everybody can see that. But only a few recognize that there is another force operating here as well-the future itself, which wants so badly to exist that it pulls the acorn into being, drawing the seedling forth with longing out of the void, guiding its evolution from nothingness to maturity. In this respect, say the Zens, it is the oak tree that creates the very acorn from which it was born. I think about the woman I have become lately, about the life that I am now living, and about how much I always wanted to be this person and live this life, liberated from the farce of pretending to be anyone other than myself. I think of everything I endured before getting here and wonder if it was me, who is now dozing on the deck of this small Indonesian fishing boat-who pulled the other, younger, more confused and more struggling me forward during all those hard years. The younger me was the acorn full of potential, but it was the older me, the already-existent oak, who was saying the whole time: "Yes --grow! Change! Evolve! Come and meet me here, where I already exist in wholeness and maturity! I need you to grow into me!" And maybe it was this present and fully actualized me who was hovering four years ago over that young married sobbing girl on the bathroom floor, and maybe it was this me who whispered lovingly into that desperate girl's ear, "Go back to bed, Liz..." Knowing already that everything would be OK, that everything would eventually bring us together here. Right here, right to this moment. Where I was always waiting in peace and contentment, always waiting for her to arrive and join me."
So maybe I don't have a fishing boat to ponder life in nor the finances to eat in Italy for even a day let alone three months....but I do believe that I am finding my own system. I don't always give it the time and care I might need but I do what I can. So I take each day and challenge it to meet me with its own challenge... a duel of sorts between the new and the old, the start and the end. I will eat because I enjoy food, I will pray in my kindness and I will love those that allow me to.
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