i yam what i yam

I’m not a tuber, but I’ve eaten plenty in my lifetime.

I’ve also lived, loved, worked, played, and hung around the intersection of joy and sorrow — sometimes all in the space of one very full day.

Jobs? I’ve had plenty. Children? One of each kind, pretty close to being all grown up. One marriage, one divorce, and one utterly resilient heart that has withstood countless occasions of aching, cracking, breaking, and expanding.

Call me Ishmael, and you’ll get no reply. Call me writer, muse, inspiratrix (in-SPIR-a-trix), artist, mystic, seeker, and you’re likely to see sparkles in the sky and a radiant light emanating from the top of my head.

Invite me to dance, to touch the face of Creation, to weave a magic spell, to laugh or to cry, and I will remember you always.

I’d rather go barefoot than wear shoes. Prefer to walk rather than drive (except, of course, on road trips of known or unknown destination). More often than not I’ll choose used over new, simple over adorned, dusty over polished, the NY Times crossword puzzle over sudoku. I find peace in the rhythm of empty, full, empty, full, empty, full and I relish the territory marked by beginnings, endings, and edges, which offer a leaping-off point absent from the landscape of deep center.

In my universe, every pain is an opportunity to heal, every conflict an invitation to bushwhack my way toward peace. My security is measured by how close I come nose-to-nose with my personal version of God on a regular basis; my wealth resides in each and every step I take toward freedom.

I Am that I Am — and I never stop yearning for that to be enough.