A warm welcome to all spending time at WYFP. It’s been about four years since my last foray down this Saturday evening road but it’s been a rare Saturday evening that I haven’t read these diaries and felt connected to those participating in them through shared trials and triumphs. For this reason too, I salute the lurkers who read, as I do, and feel a sense of connection and community here.
WYFP is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else that we think might help. Everyone and all sorts of troubles are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
The last time I wrote, I was living in Denver in a beautiful space with my two cats, I was a therapist at a prison doing meaningful work there, my mother was still living, and my days were so predictable I knew exactly how, more or less, the routine of the next 10 years of my life would unfold. None of those things are true today. I am, however, still on a journey of my own creation. And I know to the exact degree my level of commitment to my plan to startup a 'pay-what-you-can' community kitchen cafe in Washington, DC, making healthy, local, sustainably grown food accessible to all with the help of all, and what I am personally willing to experience to actualize it.
The challenges of the last two years have tested me in ways I did not anticipate. In many ways, I am less sure of who I am and most days, I’d give anything for a glimpse into the future. Some tiny proof that all will end up well.
A huge benefit to working in psychotherapy as I had, was an immersion in the skills and mindfulness practice I was working with my patients to incorporate into their daily lives. Attempting to practice what I was preaching on a daily basis really helped. I didn’t realize that until I wasn’t and so it didn’t. And then one recent day when it felt the bottom was falling out, because it seemed to be, it occurred to me that right then and there, in the present moment with everything going wrong, I really was okay. That was tremendously empowering. That moment, bridged to the next moment, and the next…Well, one could start to really get somewhere with that.
And it is true.
There are powerful moments I get to experience within myself, when I’m cooking and creating some new dish I feel, starting out as a tastebud idea on the tongue and finding expression through my absolute trust in my fingertips, my senses. My best, most ridiculously good food is created when I am confident and secure and in the present moment, absolutely certain that I know what I’m doing. And yet, my journey has seemed to challenge my ability to remain in that space for any discernible length of time. There are rich lessons in such an uncertain place. There is wisdom.
This place of uncertainty and challenge, my present home, is a true gift. But it is not an easy gift. I do not know how everything will unfold. I will be a part of what unfolds, shaping what I can, smoothing wrinkles when it helps to do so, accepting what I cannot.
My FP tonight is that in the awkward pose sometimes characteristic of life, I cannot find a comfortable spot right now, but boy, don’t I know I’ve found my purpose. Boy, don’t I know that I’m alive.
My Friends, WYFP?