The Becoming

Her soul was colored with crimson, emerald, cobalt, and rich purple gemstones. Her heartbeat moved with hard base lines and deep, resonate drums. She dreamt in the kaleidoscope of a magical world, where ancient ruins fueled her spirit. Her eyes shined the ocean tides as the divine flooded her very cells, as a tap always running. She watched the world pass by, sitting on the edge of a fishbowl, dipping her toes in the water, and sometimes going in for a swim. Yet, she chose not to drown in the chaos she saw before her, but her heart still bled when she paid to close attention and her heart bled a lot.

Zara had the heartbeat of her ancestors pulsing in her veins, driving her to find peace on the forest floor. Watching the puddles of paint gather under the rhododendrons in magnificent pallets, imagining that they are entries into another world. Zara played hide and seek with the mushrooms that rest under the ferns as the ochre leaves drift down as slow and gracefully as giant snowflakes. She spent her moments tracing the outlines of maroon and vermillion trees against the grey backdrop of moistened air.

She embraced her curves as a subtle roadmap that led to her own personal heaven. Her orgasms brought her to a sacred temple where visions of the goddess gave her the meaning of life. Zara’s satiety came in a black velvet cloak that shimmers in the moonlight.

Few people knew these things about Zara, she had always lived alone with her awareness. Fortunately, she no longer cared who understood her. Or saw her soul. At some point, indeterminate and fluid, Zara stopped trying to show people who she knows she is. Her relationship with the world became about being present with her most authentic self and she realized that the harder she tried to show herself the more awkward she became. She stopped feeling distant from others and started seeking connection without expectation. Small talk didn’t mean much to her anymore. It had become tedious years before, so Zara became adept at deep and meaningful conversations that lasted under 5 minutes.

The holidays presented themselves as a package of unidentified possibility for imbalance and questioning of her security in herself. It was time to visit her family… After the onslaught of growth and self-actualization over the past few years Zara anticipated a completely unique experience from the crazy, she always felt when dealing with her family. She had always felt like she tried too hard to get them to understand her. She wondered how it would go this time. A full week with her parents, her children, siblings, and her granddaughters. Generations would be represented, yet no one would likely notice the significance but her. She thought about how she would try to stay present with them and not become the child full of self-doubt. Without becoming the black sheep that no one understood, this part she had always played.

She decided, with a flash of insight, that she would just be there. That even though in the rest of her life she was able to be present, she knew that this would be the ultimate test of her inner work. She dove into her knowledge of herself and decided that she would give herself and her family grace. She knew she needed to accept them and how they experience her as she would with any hardship, it being exactly what it is, something to be accepted not changed. She wanted to have the wisdom to discern when to use her will and when to surrender. This experience would bring that opportunity.

Zara went home. She walked into the stained-glass house full of mended cracks. The soft light reflected on her smiling father’s face as he hugged and kissed her hello. Her stepmother and sisters embraced her with love but an uncomfortable expectation of Zara being “too much”. She felt all of their tenderness for her, but also the rawness they felt around her. Like at any moment she would expose their most intimate parts, and they certainly didn’t want that. She could feel their desire to be around her that was grounded in hesitancy and insecurity. Until this day she had been the insecure one, but with her new vision she could see their fear of being exposed, which struck her funny because all she wanted was for them to see her. She had always felt as if she were floating like a buoy on their ever-changing waves of acceptance and misunderstanding of her. Now she felt that they were rocked by her.

It occurred to her that this was the battle she’d been fighting her entire life. This battle of being true to herself but also being accepted and understood by the people in her life. But now, at this moment with her family, in her most tested situation, she stopped caring and released the grip she had on her own neck. She breathed in the experience of it. She did not carry the luggage from the past into that house that day and this lightness made it feel like everything was easy. She noticed they were more relaxed with her as well. She watched them reflect her sovereignty and harmonious attitude with every motion they made.

There were still conversations that recognized the difficulty and loss that they had all experienced over the past few years, and a reluctance to communicate fully about what had happened and how they felt about it. She could feel their resistance and decided not to push. As she made this choice not to push, her parent’s communication softened.

As the grandchildren arrived with her sons, the room lightened, and joy and laughter ensued. It is hard to keep from giggling with an adorable two-year-old running around. Zara watched how her grand daughter completely embodied everything she did. And when she would get upset, it would last until someone comforted her, then it was forgotten, never to be revisited again. This sweet girl felt safe expressing herself and would say yes and no with a zeal that Zara admired and felt strangely proud of. She was fascinated by this darling one that demanded attention without offending anyone. She studied this beautiful child as her newest instructor.

Zara noticed her granddaughter being most attracted to those who opened their arms to her. She reminded Zara of a video she saw of a panda that was up in a tree. People had tried everything to get the panda down, with no avail. Finally, a woman came up and opened her arms to the panda and it came straight down and crawled into her arms to be hugged. Is it really that simple, she wondered? Just opening your arms to people and letting them come to you? Or looking for the people who have their arms open and going towards them instead of constantly trying to break through to those who are closed.

She decided to try it out. And to practice this for the rest of the week. Although, she knew it wasn’t appropriate to hug all the time, she figured she would open emotionally without expectation and just wait for her family to come to her.

“Be the panda”, she would repeat to herself over and over. Zara recognized that the kids wanted to be in her arms more than ever before. She relaxed into herself and just let life happen. Taking this pressure off herself made her time with her family fluid and inviting instead of restricting and exhausting. She felt like she was milking the life force out of every moment. It became beautiful and surreal emulating an impressionist painting that continued to evolve with fresh colors and images.

All of the noticing she had done recently, made her life feel sacred and filled with meaning. This experience with her family was no different. Yet the emotions flowed through her like the colors dripping off the rhododendron shrub. She felt deeply, the joy and the sorrows. The little moments would bring tears to her eyes and joy to her heart. When her family responded to her openness, they danced inside the exposed cavity she called her chest. It hurt and healed the abrasions of years trauma, simultaneously. She ached all the time, but it felt good. The muscles were being worked, hard. And she knew this is what it took to build strength.

Nothing extraordinary happened in those days. Nothing anyone else would have thought was strange or different or spectacular happened. But Zara had become something extraordinary and strange and spectacular. She had become someone who could be completely with people who don’t really see her or get her or understand her. She left knowing that she was loved. She left knowing her part in the whole of her family. And finally, she could see how she fit, albeit in some unusual way.

She left with and stretched heart but a powerful one. She left with her truth shining brightly, without need for a cloak of comfort. Without the feeling of lack or wondering if she could’ve behaved better. She left as herself and she left accepting her family as who they chose to be.