No photos tonight, but some thoughts.
I am thinking a lot about the power of apology and acknowledgement. A wound from very long ago and far away received a completely unexpected gift of an apology this weekend, and the healing was quiet but profound. I feel such gratitude. The whole experience was transformative enough, profound enough that it prompted me to begin the uncomfortable exploration of imagining all of the people who perhaps have been waiting too long for such a note from me.
It is a brave act to apologize, and a brave act to forgive. Both impact identity stories, those stories we tell ourselves about who we are and why.
I did a lot of reflecting this weekend, and came to this more succinctly than usual: I realized it was not until my 40s that I started to truly take responsibility for myself, and stop blaming all that had happened for who and how I was. There is such freedom in that. But there is a also some measure of bullshit to imagine that somehow we can be separate from our histories. All that happens does indeed inform who we are, where we are tender, where we are strong… what we watch out for, what we long for, what we crave, what we need to feel safe, what we fear. We are not independent of our pasts nor are we completely dependent on all that has come before. There’s a balance here, for me– awareness, acknowledging and forgiving. Apologizing. Forgiving myself (an on-going process). Growing around it, in spite of it all, along with it.
I imagine a tree growing around barbed wire. The wire is there. Barbed and thorny. But the tree?
The tree is still a tree.
Hi Kate,
You were on my mind this past weekend so I thought I would pop in and say “Hi”. Blessings to you and yours.
So have you ever wrapped a wire around a tree with the thought that after a few years it will be embedded forever?
Ha! This made me laugh with the obvious turnaround from *problem* to *opportunity*– good for you! Hm, the unnecessary answer to your rhetorical question is No. I’ve not been that welcoming to disruptions (and rarely have sought them), but you’ve certainly made me aware of a very different way to think about it, thank you!