I was walking down Macdougal Street tonight at around 7, the air this extraordinary combination of wind and heat...a very luscious combo. I wasn't out of my apartment more than 7 seconds when I heard from behind me, "That looks like Jonathan Pillot." As I turned around, my eyes caught the unusual suspect, an old friend, Harry, whose nuclear family had been friends with ours when I was married. We had met when he and Lucy lived in the city, it was the birth of their second kid, Zoe, that may have prompted their move to the burbs...and there she was, with Harry, now 16, sitting their eating salmon roe at the sushi restaurant a few feet away from my front door. Harry said that he and Zoe had been playing a game saying which people resemble others...and, here I was looking like Jonathan Pillot. Harry, whom I run into maybe once a year (although with fb it almost doesn't seem to matter...I knew Harry had his HS reunion a few weeks ago), looked up from his table and said, "You seem happy...relaxed." And, I said I was. On both counts. More so than ever in my life. "It's funny, Harry. There are people in my life who now think I am the most easygoing, mellow person they know. Blows my mind, given how people who knew me "when" must have experienced me. And Harry turned to Zoe and said what was surely a statement of fact. Certainly my experience of me. Then. "JP was so tightly wound." And, I was. And, it felt SO deeply validating, about this journey with no name, to hear someone who had to have been around far too many marital squabbles between me and X say that he felt me so differently. Saw it in my eyes. In my soul. And it wasn't just the ensuing discussion among Harry, comfy-in-her-skin Zoe and me about what's at the core of such a shift, or a sense of inner joy (Harry's POV was that it's all about the present) that helped to fill my lungs with more open air and breezes, it was simply that inner voice patting me on (the inside of) my back, allowing me to breathe in a deep, rewarding kiss to that road less traveled...the one that has no detailed map, or estimated travel time, or even another guide to help lead the way. It was one of the moments when I could REALLY embrace all that came before...all those bumps and nights of the dark soul...all of which led to those inyourface touchpoints that simply prompt me to close my eyes and gently nod. In gratitude. Because as I said to Harry, we often can't see the progress that we may be making, day-to-day, when we are doing our inner work. It's like watching your kid grow, moment-by-moment, we can't necessarily see the movement, until maybe something specific happens, or we suddenly look with a different lens, and it's as if all of the little steps just clicked in, together, created combustion. And we see that we are miles away from the last time we could see. Truly, one small moment at a time. So, as I bid adieu to Harry and Zoe, I appreciated deeply how the Universe can throw up these reflectors - in people and/or in circumstances - that can be our own, personal measuring stick. For own own process and progress. If we want to see. I don't really give a shit what most people think, and at the same time, I have to say that it felt fab to have been experienced in the way that I was. From someone who had seen enough of my clearly unfulfilled side. So, as I bid adieu to Harry and Zoe, I appreciated deeply how the Universe can throw up these reflectors - in people and/or circumstances - that can be our own, personal measuring stick. For our own progress and process. If we want to see.Isn't it interesting how the word "wound" has two different pronunciations? And meanings...or, are they more the same than I realize?
