Here I am at the cusp of a new relationship with C. (yes, blog, meet C.). So much possibility. Am I being a clear-eyed, smart me? I wonder… Or am I allowing myself to get lost in narratives? I feel more me than ever before. I feel present. I feel ready. I feel so at home in my journey and as though I’ve felt another traveler who won’t impede me but will rather carry my load from time to time, and me his. This is grace.

I am thinking tonight, too, of two friends, both named Elizabeth, both met via the Internet. One is sitting tonight with her darling Scott in Indiana, the love of her life, the father of her two girls. A fellow librarian. He’s being knocked down – taken out – by cancer.  Horrid, wretched cancer. To lose your mate, your best friend at 40-odd years … well, it’s too soon. So hard. And yet I’m happy for them in a way. They aren’t being “brave” per se, but are rather facing it head on. Living it. Being present with Scott’s dying. They are inside the process in a way that is incredibly powerful. Elizabeth and her daughters — and, who knows, maybe Scott, too — won’t come out the other side as the same people. It’s powerful, powerful work.

And there’s Elizabeth another state over. Sitting with a sealed envelope of things she would like to find in a partner. A list she wrote a year ago. A list she was led to after her marriage ended. A list she can’t quite remember but feels ready – I believe – to reconsider. This Elizabeth, too, is on a powerful journey. And she is so present with herself and her sons, and even her ex. Present with his lies. Present with his Buddha-nature potential that she sees but that alludes him. Present with her own slow but searching and whip-smart self.

What a time for journeys. May we all open ourselves to the heavens and our great good. There is so much out there to be discovered.