Big Picture
I’m forcing myself to stick my head way up off my shoulders and look at the big picture because it’s getting a tad cloudy down here in Rachel Land. This week started off on a melancholic note. There was the low after the high of being on retreat with people working on racial justice in New Orleans. There were connections with people that were intimate and natural and fun, and now those relationships don’t have a natural extension into my world.
I’ve been trying to shake that off – that little cloud of grey that followed me home. Then this morning I learned that one of my work contracts needed me to reduce the rate. I also learned that another contract is caught in a web of white lies and tedious bureaucracy. I had to dredge up my maxim – one door closes so another can open. But seriously it’s been a lot of slamming doors around here the past few days.
While walking Stella this morning, I ran into a good friend, who had just lost a good friend to cancer. My friend is two years in remission from her own cancer. Today I am healthy. My son is healthy. My loved ones are healthy.
Gears are grinding. Gears are turning. Gears get stuck. Gears get unstuck.
My facilitator’s training is supposed to pick back up with this group. My book is about to be on a regimen of being workshopped.
What care I that doors are closing if the doors I want have yet to open, or are cracking open, or are maybe waiting for me to pry them open. What care I?
My elephant necklace is securely around my neck. Focus on the big picture, Rachel. The minutia is where you get lost too easily at sea – adrift in the spewing foaming backwash that floats to the top. Dive deeper. Who are you and who did you want to be?
A writer, an author, and a change agent. Books that change how people think. Speaking to groups about change. All of these work doors that are narrowing are not a window into my actualization. They are simply about money. And the lack of money has been a sticking issue for the last three years and it makes me weary, but it has also kept me scrappy and flexible.
A lover, a partner, a friend. A relationship that builds on what I’ve learned about myself and others. An open heart received by an open heart. Truth without fear. With a person who is available and who wants only me. All of me – the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Deep breath in, deep breath out. Gratitude for a day with health. A day with friends who pick up the phone and listen. A day with a kiss from my son and big hug.
The rest will come. Just keep your eyes on the big picture.
