Happily returning
to a neighborhood coffee shop that whips up blissful cappuccinos and
gives me a corner to center, muse and take in the sights of the Mile High City.
***
My confidence has been knocked.
I intuit an image of the inner golden orb emanating
self-assuredness, steadiness and self-esteem, suddenly elbowed, punctured,
pushed around by a quickening pace of life disagreeing with rhythm required for
soulful renewal.
I realize this as I create mini-adventures in the Austin
airport during my wait to board and take off to Denver.
I sip a vanilla milkshake and explore. Linger and browse
through magazines and bestsellers at the bookstore.
I buy a tee that reads: Tacos and Traffic, Austin,
Texas.
“This is my life.” I tell the cashier, and think that
perhaps the traffic is to blame for the emotional strain stretching thin my
capabilities to access and embody my higher self.
My intuitive powers are foggy, clouded by shoulds,
schedules, pressure to maintain a collected sense of self.
I struggle to decipher my inner voice from the loud
whirl of thoughts.
I’m stumbling, and make rookie mistakes – with traffic,
teaching, misplacing keys, driving in circles as I make up my mind about what I
need to do next as I think of traffic patterns and avoiding rush hour mess.
My checking-in moments to pause, breathe, hear a divined
answer, to feel into a response, are tainted with streaks of desperation and
stressed emotional resources.
Walking along the terminal, water bottle cradled into
the crook of an arm, my disappearing milkshake in the other, I feel the sudden
weight of my backpack. The pep I characteristically have for solo adventures is
simply deflated.
I want to be held. I want to shrug off my
responsibilities. I want to feel like myself.
And perhaps my confidence is knocked because of the
hustle, because of the perpetual going and doing I’ve thought I’ve needed to do
to create a life in Austin.
Austin demands hustle. I’ve been rerouted in the
transition from Kentucky to Texas, and for a sensitive, introvert like me, the
move to Austin was enough. The surprising and unexpected redirects have asked
for a continual rising up and resilience to push through to establish a life
that is grounded and purposeful.
Six months in and I’m unsure of the life I am leaving to
get on that plane and go to Denver.
Is it a life I’m excited to return to?
I’m unsure. I’m too emotionally frayed to unearth the
answer.
And there’s no need to determine the answer here in the
terminal.
My shoulders ache, so I settle down into an empty row of
seats and watch night approach.
My confidence aches, too, and I place my expectations,
my pushy dreams and demanding shoulds at my feet. I know the answer is
compassion. Not a bolstering, not a bluffing and puffing up.
I let my confidence be a little off center.
I accept that I’m a bit confused and distant from myself
these days.
Compassion. This is a cycle. This is a season. This the
tug of back-and-forth informing my being.
Compassion toward the days, the waves, the seasons and
cycles where I want to tuck in, hide out, go incredibly gently, and be left be.
This is not the time to push, force, feed mantra or
affirmations that do not resonate with my shifting, sensitive being.
Compassionate gazes toward the cycles of extroversion
and going, and introversion and reflection.
In the allowing for reflection, there’s permission to
relax and release and be. In the being, there’s the emergence of feeling, and
feeling coos to be held, to be replenished, to be renewed.
And the remedy includes a morning and afternoon in
Denver where there are no plans. There are no expectations and drives to
capture the city.
I let the city come to me.
I let the breath come to me.
I let the answers come, when they are ready, to me.
And the answer is a walk in the cold to a coffee shop I
adore. The answer takes shape in a dusty rose sweater from a beloved boutique
and a plum and indigo scarf wrapping love and memories of travel around me.
I relish the cold. I love seeing the leaves turn colors.
I walk in ankle boots and find comfort in the click they make against pavement
I’ve travelled before, back to a coffee shop that I can nestle into and toward
a downtown I vaguely remember, and toward a mansion that holds memories of
creative writings with pixie-like beings.
Cue the chill. Cue Kings of Leon. Cue the cappuccino.
Cue the creation of space that naturally occurs when in
a distant, different space, and I feel into a confidence that feels lighter
because simply being restores.
The answer arises from a body that can only speak when
there’s space to listen, to receive.
There may be no mistakes. Only lessons. And who knows
how actions ripple across the web of interconnected being.
And right now, even the word lesson feels too much. So I
don’t need to self-instruct. I can just breathe, savor every foamy sip of that
cappuccino, enjoy the the Kings of Leon throwback and let my awareness rest and
quietly be in the bright, cold embrace of the Mile High City.
