10 days beyond the Silence.

So....once again, for the second time in less than 10 days, I find myself at the beach - an unprecedented embarrassment of riches. This time, it is My Husband and me....our first vacation without children since 1990. I took this picture today. I love how the sun is bursting through the cloud - spreading it's rays in all directions. This is how I felt, for the last three days of my Silent Retreat. After the Dark Night in Room H, and the next morning's nap in the new room - the one full of light and sweet air, this was me. It was as if some hard, oppressive vise had loosed it's hold on me. I felt a freedom and peace that I had not known for years. Well....that is not exactly true. The week before I left on my retreat, we visited SoonToBePeaceCorps Boy at his place of employ. He delighted in taking us on a tour of the beautiful Camp. Up one hill...up an even higher hill....scenery and vista's to to take your breath away. Poised at the very top - the pinnacle of all the hills, my Boy turned to me and with a sheepish look on his face said "Sorry Mom, the brakes on this Golf Cart aren't the best", and with that, we were off. Straight Down and around. Normally,This - is not my thing....I do not like it, Sam I am....
But the wind was cool and brisk, and it played around my neck, ruffling my newly shorn hair. The feeling was one of pure pleasure, so I closed my eyes, tilted my head back and gave myself permission to feel the feels, to delight in the wind - to lean in to the freedom.
  So here I am 10 days beyond the Silence. I still feel free. I still feel like I am on the Ferry....looking behind....looking ahead. I am still in that place of Giving Over. I have rediscovered something that I used to know - that there is Music between the notes...the Silence itself is beautiful music.
  I have read and re-read my journal. My word art for happiness. My flow chart of Joy, and Joy Drains. I laugh at the musically notated Mantras that I wrote...I will keep these - they have power.
   There are entries that are deeply personal, entries that are heartbreaking to and for me. There are words of hope. Words of anger and words of exhaustion. My words...words and feelings that have bought me my freedom.
   Dusk is my favorite time at the beach....but only at the beach - anywhere else, I find it full of Melancholy. At the beach, it is golden....you can feel a shimmering aura, and the air has a particular taste. Tonight, as I was sitting there watching John fish in the surf, I realized the tide was coming in at an alarming rate. Our chairs were on a raised portion of the beach, and the tide was coming up and circling around - effectively cutting us off - making us an island - rimmed in by the sea on an increasingly diminishing patch of sand. I grabbed the chairs and towels and beach bag, and slogged through the new channel of ocean to even higher ground, where I had a great view of the spot I had vacated. It was there that I learned my last lesson from my Silent Retreat....the words that my journal have been trying to tell me.
   When the Children were little, John and I had a series of unbelievable catastrophes...one right after the other, each worse than the one before. Our friends, in solidarity, and at an attempt at humor started a little phrase. If their car broke down..."Oh no, I am starting to feel like the Kennedys!" If their basement flooded..."Oh no, I am starting to feel like the Kennedys". Somehow, in the intervening years - we have bought into that phrase...Oh no...WE are the Kennedys - shutting ourselves off - becoming an island. When our friends moved away, either in distance or in spirit, we did not search out others. My good, smart, funny Husband and I became removed and wasted our emotional currency bracing ourselves for the onslaught of the tide. Well NO MORE.
   We are the Kennedys.....free and seeking. Giving over to the experience of the Ferry. Looking behind AND ahead.
    AlmostPeaceCorps Boy has a Childhood friend....she is wise. She had a Facebook post on the night before I left for the retreat. It so resonated with me, that it was the first entry in my Journal. "Respond out of clarity, rather than reacting to Chaos".
   The gift of Silence - breaking free of the Chaos on my way to clarity. Thanks be to God.