When I lived in Ohio, I inherited an apartment as part of job. The job, the apartment, came with a partial set of dishes in the cupboard. I liked them a lot. They were left by the previous inhabitant. He left behind the pieces he did not want, which happened to coincide with exactly what I loved.
I kept the set of small yogurt bowls for years, finally gifting them onward. Through the bowls — which were in a light green and tan and white pattern, a little swirly, just the right size to hold in one hand while wielding a spoon in the other — I was connected to life lived in that apartment before me.
I also inherited a set of reports — printed out, in a large gray filing cabinet — as I was picking up the job of the person before me. It was a community-building job, where you lived nearby the young people you were shepherding.
So, the person whose apartment, whose job, I inherited, the same person who had chosen the dishes I liked — who had chosen the job I liked — who liked many of the same people I was coming, in my own turn, to like and to love — was a presence. In a very real sense, I walked into a history already made, and then made my own.
I grew up in a home where the emotional patterns of my parents felt larger than life. There was little room for my own. Though we had family meetings that gathered us together — and this I appreciated — to share news and make decisions, it was still the case that I had one parent who held emotions in, and another who let them out. Pretty much absolutely, in every case, with little in the way of tuning or volume adjustment.
While the two extremes may have balanced each other — for the two of them — there wasn’t a whole lot of extra air in the house for the younger generation to breathe sometimes. Our needs were secondary and often invisible.
The focus was on outward conformity (or rebellion), achievement (or failure), and honesty. I learned a lot about fitting in, blending into the background (my favorite animal totem for many years was the chameleon), and standing out in very specific ways (academics, good behavior) to earn praise. I was honest to a fault, built that way and unlikely to change; but it took years before I actually started speaking my mind.
When I took a job at a boarding high school in the rural Appalachian foothills as a (somewhat) young adult, I entered a very small world. The staff bonding trip was outdoors, camping. The very first morning, I was in the women’s restroom building, having a quick clean-up at the sink. In walked my new supervisor, an older woman. Very little room for privacy when you’re literally half-naked in front of new co-workers! To her credit, she smiled and nodded courteously. From this, I learned that courtesy goes a long way in a pinch. Truly it did, then and for many days and months and years afterward in that very small, very intense hotbed of community living, full of teenage angst and big ideals and lots of excitement and creativity all balled up together and hurtling toward love.
Lately I’ve come to understand that, even though I did not act them out often in public, till after my first physical health crisis in my mid-20s and subsequent recovery, I did have emotional patterns learned at home and polished through observation. Every time I hold in anger and push it down, or speak very quietly through clenched teeth, I thank my mother. Every time it erupts, and I am embarrassed and want to leave the room, I thank my father. There is no shame in this, only the learning of what we know, until we learn differently, and make our own conscious choices.
I’ve been practicing with qigong, and a lot of insights from others, to mutate, transform, transfix, capture and move along, emotional energies from one state to another. It’s a lifelong practice, but I’m happy to report it can be done; it can be made habitual; it can be a source of deep peace, comfort, and joy.
Every time I step outside what I used to think I knew (before I knew better), every time I take another chance, another step on the journey of transforming what is within me to better align with Spirit, body, matter, and the wishes and needs of Mother Earth, I am more at home. In myself, on the planet, in my communities of residence.
I will always be marked by those I love; but lately I make my own choices about where I belong — with whom, and how long, and how to relate and grow and change. I wonder where your choices have led you: In the words of folk singer Carrie Newcomer, “Who have you been and who are you now? Where has your heart traveled?”
Kirsten Bohl: Nature, Play, Magic 