I’m back, just like winter. Coming down today in brief torrents of misplaced hail; winter was never shy announcing its reentrance on window panes, bursting new buds, driving the aspirational walker back indoors. In my developmental psychology class we are looking at the lifespan, examining how biological and social pressures can generalize our lives into distinct stages…I know that meaningful search for identity I’m currently going through, it’s no original occurrence, I’m no original idea. It’s simply a stage; middle age is statistically speaking supposed to be the best time of your life, pressures off! But still currently (not all the time, usually I’ve noticed when dealing with some type of disturbance or conflict) I find myself in the middle of an internal struggle, trying to define myself to myself, so if needed I could partake in some pretty good convincing that my life does have meaning. Yet as I keep searching for this sturdy foundation to build my identity (yes my ego) off of I’ve considered perhaps another solution.

Although I may see myself roughly embodying a few unique qualities, who I ultimately want to end up as still remains changing and undetermined. Then nights like last night happen, friends and circumstances fall into place, time easily passes, worry dissipates. The moment takes care of itself; without the presence of identity without the presence of stability. Although I aspire to be grounded on my own mountain of solidarity where the boundaries are defined, where the definitions are set clear; perhaps I should take a different approach. If moments are fluid, why am I achieving to be stable? If I am striving to be solid and if time by nature is fluid, why am I inherently creating resistance? Let me be water, let me be water, let my identity be water, fluid and bending, consistent in all its inconsistency.     

“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you….perhaps you find it yet hard to believe, and I am certainly not asking you to believe that your identity cannot be found in any of those things. You will know the truth of it for yourself. Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret of life is to ‘die before you die’ —— and find that there is no death”

                                         -Eckhart Tolle

Lets be honest; I love the semi colon

Because I was lacking the motivation to blog on a Friday night, today’s post will just have to be doubly insightful! No pressure or anything…

On Friday my ornithology/ecology class (thus my new apparent fascination with birds) took a field trip out to the flood plains of the Nooksack River. I’d never taken the time before to examine the space between the mud banks and the flowing river. It was if my eyes had always just skipped over the middle ground, the mortar that tied water and solid land together. Ephemeral, the land between is founded upon inconsistency. With the in and out flow of currents the moss, the lichen, and Lupin must drive roots into ecological tides of change; the sturdy black cotton wood and the blinking reeds adapted to wade in a fluctuating flood. Where brooks become creeks, creeks streams, streams to end in a river; still water learns to run again. An eagle watched us from across the winter runoff, perched alone in its solitary tower, waiting. From its perspective I could see myself standing in the inbetween. Red shoes sinking in the spongy mud flat I am fixed. I an ephemeral pool in fragile equilibrium, caught between drying up and flooding out over. 

Today was one of those two cups of coffee mornings; where the a.m. flies and the afternoon drags out like tired feet on the bay. If you look out when the winds calm you can see the water tracks, tracing pathways taken before. I’m visually reliant on these patterns that lead out onto the salt fields between islands and diving birds. The possibilities that horizons promise leave room for the mind to exhale; breath blending with fog as another day decides to pass.

On an entirely different note— the Seinfeld episode ‘Man Hands’ has to be one of the best, excellent way to end the day. Yes it was going to come out eventually….I’m devout Seinfeld fan and “I’m loving every minute of it!”

I don’t think that was a twist off.

If you ever need a physiological, let’s be honest psychological, boost to get you through a ten hour day I would recommend an oven baked yam; with rosemary, salt, and olive oil…rallies the troops every time (the troops my motivation of course!) 

The rain has returned, crept back in on tipped fingers and toes, during the night while curtains are closed and blinds let down. Seven chairs gathered around a small kitchen table, too much pasta, and bad T.V. humming in the background. We all gather connections around ourselves, friendship the much needed blanket between. They, the recognition you still exist beyond a mirrored self, reflected above a bathroom sink. If friendships can grow like the shooting branches of a western maple, is there a point when bark becomes too brittle, wood a breakable twig? Give me a signal for when nutrients should be diverted, pruning a necessity to fuel new life. Tell me, is there such a thing as recessive growth? Is there a point when yielding simply evolves into a case of unwanted change? Let me find those brittle branches hidden in coats of snow, let me release the dead wood I am holding onto so tightly.

Tell me, why shouldn’t friendship be like the warm yam with rosemary that breaks up a ten hour day?

Puppy love and wet kisses. She lopes up and back along the small strip of beach by the harbor. Above a carpet of broken bottles, bleached oysters, and smooth sea glass her haphazard run reminds us both of adolescent insecurity. Fish tailing up the beach her longer back legs catch up and successfully beat her front paws sending fur flying and tumbling in black sand. The bay is calm this afternoon, sea gulls small crafts moored in shallow water. Watching the water is my religion, attention my prayer. Standing on old drift wood logs the sea in light becomes a series of water tracks. At this moment we are both the beginning and the end, at an intersection in afternoon reflection.

A quote for thought:

“The compulsion to do, and the tendency to derive your sense of self-worth and identity from external factors such as achievement, is an inevitable illusion as long as you are identified with the mind.”

                                                                          -Eckhart Tolle

Here’s to accountability thank you blogosphere for keeping my resolution honest. Ready, set, fifteen minutes, write. Today for my science journal I had to spend time outside and write down my observations. Let’s be honest, nature gets my adjectives flowing so bear with me….

 The winter sun was lounging in sheets of morning blue this afternoon. Downy covers cast aside, reaching fingers of light journeyed through the Douglas fir canopy to rest on newly casted webs. I was amazed at the patterns, the interlocking nets so completely hidden by over cast and wind and rain. I wonder now if the spider webs lacing by observation point have always existed, unappreciated, with the absence of detail light so graciously brings. Or are the spiders too, like me rising with the sun, and in salute offering up their woven voices in a prayer of admiration. Let me join the song. Let me rejoice with you as detail returns again to the world. Don’t you notice the smiles returning again behind hoods, people passing with eyes up and vulnerable joining yours in pursuit of the little things that complete the picture of early spring? Are you a false spring; risen to early, missing coffee, returning back to bed?