#56 Love Letters to my life:

I want more of this!

San Francisco reflections

 (We know the day we were born, but most of us do not know the day we will die. This love letter to my life is written on the day I've designated as my death day: the 17th of every month, and reminds me to be grateful for my joy-filled life. — Joyce Wycoff)

This month, my Death Day finds me on the Embarcadero in San Francisco with Anita Perez Ferguson, my award-winning, historical fiction writing friend. She’s attending a writer’s conference and I’m tagging along, riding her wave, and spending glorious time renewing my love affair with San Francisco, in a time when it needs all the love it can get.

It was surprising to hear all the comments when I told people I was coming here. Rather than the envious ooo’s and ahh’s I expected, I heard horror stories of thievery, homeless camps, odors of urine and heroin. (I’m still wondering how the person who told me about the heroin knew what it smells like.) All of that might be true; I don’t know. All I know is that my morning walk made my spirit soar and long to have more of this. 

When I returned to my journal, I began to figure out what I meant by “this.” It was bigger than just being on a lark in San Francisco. It was about walking along water, being outside on a beautiful day, seeing and taking photos of new sights, basking in beauty, and feeling the incredible freedom of life unbound from worry and doubts.

Part of this euphoria springs from gratitude for my health, my friendships, my life in general, and part springs from my dipping into the incredible book by John O’Donohue: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. I first read this book in 2009, at one of my lowest life moments. My husband had died a few years earlier, a long-fantasized dream of happily-ever-after had recently crashed and burned, and my second-mother was on her death bed. Life was grim and I did not know where to go or what to do. 

The lilting soul words of Anam Cara gave me hope, reminded me not to give up on love or life. And, slowly, as life is wont to do, things began to change and open up to new joy.

Because a friend is now reading Anam Cara for the first time, I was pulled back in and began reading it in a slightly different way. The Celtic words mean soul friend and are described as the recognition and reconnection of two souls formed from the same clay, a process that “brings to birth within you new territories of the heart.” 

It’s easy to think of this process in terms of romantic love and start the cycle of Hallmark expectations. What is coming through for me this time, though, is a call to truly love myself ... to bravely cross the threshold into love of my own clay, my own soul, my own life, whatever that might look like, wherever that might take me. And let that overflowing of love for myself carry into the world. In terms of the Hero’s Journey, love is the boon I need to win in order to share it with the world. Love for myself will open me up to a more generous love for the world … assuming I have the courage to open my heart to its full width.

It makes me think of the Grinch … one of my favorite stories … as he watches the people in Who-ville singing even though all their Christmas presents and decorations had been snatched away. Watching them come together on that day, made the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes and he “found the strength of ten Grinches, plus two!”

I want to allow my own heart to expand to its fullest size and I know the threshold to be crossed is learning to love my own self. I also want to thank Brené Brown for her wisdom:

''I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear:

“I’m not screwing around. It’s time. All of this pretending and performing – these coping mechanisms that you’ve developed to protect yourself from feeling inadequate and getting hurt – has to go.

“Your armor is preventing you from growing into your gifts. I understand that you needed these protections when you were small. I understand that you believed your armor could help you secure all of the things you needed to feel worthy of love and belonging, but you’re still searching and you’re more lost than ever.

“Time is growing short. There are unexplored adventures ahead of you. You can’t live the rest of your life worried about what other people think. You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through you. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.''

How are you loving yourself with your whole heart?

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