This Moment.. just now

I have always loved Fall.   There is something in the way light falls, at least here in the North West, it takes on this golden, buttery, soft, rich, full hue, something in the very quality of the light itself seems to shift.... I always have this sense that at this time of  year, if I just reach out, just a bit farther, I can grasp the light itself, and hold it for my own.  Or perhaps it's that I feel held, cradled in that sweet golden light, and that I can rest at last.

Then too, there is the dance of the leaves at this time of year.   The way they slip from their moorings and begin a slow spiraling dance down to the ground, whispering softly their secrets that I can never quite hear.   Watching them scatter off the toes of my shoes as I walk, every movement a dance, an offering up, a surrender.. and it makes me want to run, or  perhaps dance with them, falling to the ground, laying on my back amongst them, one of them.. surrendering myself as I stare at the sky above and ponder what comes next.

This Moment, And The Next.  The beginning of this blog was somehow scarier and harder and more anxiety filled than I thought it would be.   I see it as a reclamation.  A beginning, statement of what and who I am, where I want to be, where I'm going, where I've been, and hopefully along the way it will all become clear and cohesive and maybe, just maybe, some word, or turn of phrase will ease someone elses way on their path.

So, I begin this on the first day of my favorite month, as the sun streams in my window and the breeze seems to be calling me outside to play.  I had a bout of fierce anxiety and had to stop for a bit, reach out and ask for help. (Something that is still fiercely hard for me to do and seems still, fraught with danger.)  I had to step away from the page and the ink that hits the page and makes solid and real what I sometimes still wish were a dream or made up.. or untrue.

The first "This Moment" came unexpectedly and snuck in quietly unannounced on a day very similar to this one.. filled with the scent of apples and burning wood, the light golden and soft and the leaves beginning to abandon their branches.   I still see the first "Moment" clearly in my mind's eye like a snapshot... except with taste and scent and touch.... a nearly perfectly kept memory, something I have very few of.

I feel myself grasping for this to be so much clearer than it feels.  I feel as though I need to fill this page with back story, history for it to be understood, felt, accepted. But perhaps today, just here is enough, feeling the Fall breeze play across my skin as it did ten years ago, when I began to truly live.  On a sweet September afternoon, when a simple question.. an innocent question, began to let the light in.   The light of the truth, the light of knowledge and of more questions.  That was the first day of my life I could truly claim as my own.  The day I realized, I am a Survivor.   The day I committed to healing, to finding my way along my path of healing to the end, no matter what.  

That was the first day I realized the only way to continue, to go through something so hard, and exhausting, terrifying and overwhelming is one step at a time.   This Moment, and the next, and the next.  That's all I had to worry about.   And it still holds true to this day. 

This Moment.   And this Moment.  It's enough, for today.

May you have a blessed and beautiful day.