Inhale, Clare!

Hey Maggie,

So I was up in the middle of the night thinking about Emily Dickinson, thinking about love , and then...thinking about asthma, of all things.

But of course it all fits together.

"Until you have loved, you can not become yourself..."

I started thinking about loving as breathing. We breathe out and share ourselves and spread warmth and light and connection.  Then we breathe in and accept the breath of others, we receive their warmth, their light and feel the connection.

When one has asthma, one can breathe in, but not out.  I guess when one has COPD, one can breathe out, but has extreme difficulty inhaling. Simplistic, I know, but go with the image.

I think I have spirito-psycho COPD. I can send love out, but I can't receive it well.  And then we all know people who are love sponges, who absorb as much as they can get, but are afraid to release any for anyone else.

And romantically, we always manage to find each other!

It seems like kind of a joke, but we actually fit together beautifully.

I am Grandma...waiting to eat, not having anything until everyone has been served and has left the table.  What is left is mine.  Granted, I don't do that with food, but I do it with life.  I am that guilt inducing yia-yia who  says "Don't worry about me...I'll be okay here, alone."  (Sighhhhhh...)

I was stuck in the past again.  Remembering being about 12 or 13 and having daily conversations with a classmate.  We were both convinced our fathers hated us, and would bring examples to school each day to share with each other...a very private show and tell.  I remember, at an earlier age, thinking - Dads have to love you.  It's like a rule...and knowing my Dad didn't love me was pretty clear evidence that I am not lovable.  Like yesterday, I am cycling through all of the old crap, but seeing it a little differently.

Maybe if I am very good, someone will love me... this strikes me as being very female.  Maybe the root of being nice.  I'll keep trying though, because maybe I'm not lovable, but at least I'm still alive.

So what is the remedy?  There must be some way to make people, first - aware of breathing on a spirito-psycho level.  Then to teach us how to inhale and follow with an exhale.

I'll hang out with the trees if it stops raining and maybe get some answers!!

Love and hugs from Clare

Dreaming about travel, being places with groups of people for the past few nights.  Don't quite understand yet.