Once the storm has passed, I finally find my own seat, and it strikes me then that much of my pain came from believing agitation and urgency were necessary, and that fear was something I had no choice but to obey,
Once the storm has passed, this is painful because I know better and still forget, and every forgetting seems to reopen that private grief of not being able to stay beside myself,
Once the storm has passed, but I do not want to turn this into another self-punishment because that too is only more noise, more movement, more distance from the quiet thing trying to return,
Once the storm has passed, can I stop placing my distress under a spotlight because it is never needed,
Once the storm has passed, and the moment I listen to the room inside me changes shape enough for me to notice that what I need has been waiting here without accusation…
I meet myself with gentleness, because I know how violent my inner voice can become after mistakes, how quickly it confuses disappointment and turns one human lapse into a sentence,
I meet myself with gentleness, I have lost too many hours to that cruelty, which is the sick part, because punishment can masquerade as honesty that I was so convinced
I meet myself with gentleness, yet none of that harshness has ever restored my clarity, it has only made me smaller and more afraid to touch the work again, as if shame were somehow a better teacher than patience,
I meet myself with gentleness, can I refuse the voice that bruises me further,
I meet myself with gentleness, because what actually helps is not the lash but the return, not the accusation but the willingness to stand back up before the wound has finished performing its tragedy…
I come back to myself slowly, there is relief that the deeper part of me is not erased by confusion, only obscured by noise, by haste, by the hot blur of being too caught in my own reaction,
I come back to myself slowly, and yes I still ache over what happened, but the ache changes once I let it become pure information instead of identity or my own biography,
I come back to myself slowly, this is the mercy I keep needing to relearn, that I am allowed to resume, I am allowed to continue and I am allowed to rebuild while a little shaken,
I come back to myself slowly, but can I move with care even while some trembling remains,
I come back to myself slowly, as the truest part of my practice was never the fantasy of never stumbling but the quiet courage of meeting myself again after I do,
I return to the work and keep going, as there is something almost holy in not abandoning it just because I arrived imperfectly, and in not letting fear narrate the final version,
I return to the work and keep going, this doesn’t make me grand or special, only honest enough to admit that making anything worthwhile asks more surrender than control,
I return to the work and keep going, what comes after is never the clean triumph my ego prefers but something better, a humbler kind of peace where I no longer need the moment to be flawless,
I return to the work and keep going, can I stay long enough for calm to find me all over again,
I return to the work and keep going, until the scattered pieces begin to listen to one another and the life inside the work rises again, reminding me that the interests was never my enemy, only my unfinished conversation with it…
Watchwords:
Treating agitation like truth,
Without accusation waiting here,
A bruise instead of a biography,
Meeting myself again after,
The life in the work,
