I didn't understand it then, but now I cherish those words. From the very beginning, my Mother encouraged me to discover what was my authentic self and have courage to be that. She may not have known then just how much I would need that courage. But so often I've thought of Shakespeare's words. How do I learn that essential self? In college, I captured this quote by Dag Hammerskjold which gave me a clue:

"The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside. And only he who listens can speak. Is this the starting point of the road towards the union of your two dreams -- to be allowed in clarity of mind to mirror life and in purity of heart to mold it?"

In any communication, listening is as vital as speaking. Sometimes that's forgotten in dialogue. It's even more important in the dialogue with self. Perhaps that's what the wisdom of meditation is all about -- that we just give ourselves time to listen...to ourselves.

And so on that road to pure truth, I try to stop now and then, and pause to hear myself into being.

When I was young, still in the single digit years, I possessed a chameleon - like tendency. I would adopt the vocal mannerisms of whatever friend or cousin I'd been with that day. Maybe my Mother noticed it. Maybe that's what prompted her choice of quote. I didn't know why I'd do it. Maybe I in my young mind was "trying the person on for size" in a way to get to know them better.

I hope all traces of this tendency have disappeared now that I'm two months away from the big 4-0. I know sometimes I'll adopt a phrase or two that I hear someone else use. But this gets adopted into my own vocabulary.

I wonder if my chameleon days were because I was shy? Was it easier to "take on the colors of the surrounding environment" when feeling threatened? If this is so, then it is even more important to have the occasional retreat into self, to become reaquainted with all the peaks and valleys of inner environment. Otherwise it's like trying to remember an environment. I have a hazy idea of what the Catalina mountains look like. But it's only when I am there in Tucson, looking at them, do I know the details.

May I simply, quietly, graceously grow into me.

A while back, I was rereading an old journal I kept fifteen years ago. I was surprised how much 'me' it contained. I had the same values, pleasures, inner core beliefs, insecurities, and fascinations I do now. As the years go by, I do simply become "MORE ME". The evolution is interesting. I'm finding I LIKE me!

I haven't yet reached this stage of spiritual development. For I react with confusion at best and usually react with panic.

If only I'd gotten up fifteen minutes earlier. Or if only I'd not taken the time for a fifteen minute e-mail letter. Or if only everyone had rinsed their plates and put water in the pots and bowls. Then the foodstuffs wouldn't have nearly bonded to them at the molecular level and I would have finished the dishes fifteen minutes earlier.

Or if the road construction had been already finished, we wouldn't have had to take the detour that took us fifteen minutes out of our way. . .

Laura wouldn't have felt compelled to rush on route to Goodyear this morning. We agreed to meet Glen and Mother there at 7:30 for the pick-up of the moving van. We travelled safely enough all the way there going just a little over the speed limit. We were less than half a block from their house (soon to not be their house) when the policeman spied us and . . .

We had to pull over in the motel parking lot there. He said we were going twenty miles over the speed limit. Laura graciously admitted it and sent me on foot to Mother's. Needing the toilet, I nearly ran there. After my bladder was taken care of, I remembered I had proof of insurance in my wallet. I wasn't sure if there was any in the car, however. So Glen took me in the van to where Laura was parked. But I'd remembered to put the other paper in the glove compartment.

With all of that, we arrived at the rental place at 8:06 am, only six minutes after the scheduled rental time. They weren't open yet!!

Ten minutes later, the harried thin middle-aged woman arrived, explaining that her babysitter didn't show up. With the way the day had begun, I thought it very prudent to get the extra insurance on the van for $17.50!

I drove the last twenty miles back home. I'd gotten off the highway and on to the street leading towards home, when I looked at the speedometer to see I was going 65 miles per hour. I quickly slowed down to 55, and saw a policecar coming down the other way. When I saw him do a U-turn in the rearview mirror, I feared I, too, was going to get a ticket. But he stopped there and caught someone else. Whew!

Continue Forward in Time...
"What Lies Beyond" Index, Book Two of the Journal
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