Signs

For more than a week I have wallowed in my own wondering and self-pity. In certain circumstances, we deserve that at the very least. But only for a moment. There have been signs that my moment has passed. All signs say, ‘reach out, give love, take care of others, find yourself’.

I used to think that finding meaning in signs was like making fun of God – ‘God’ being the one proper noun in the English language for which I haven’t found an appropriate pronoun, but I digress…

When we have opened our eyes to it, meaning surrounds us. The question is not really about whether or not the tree falls in a forest–it does or it does not; that is truth. The question is really about what the event would mean to a witness. The ‘sign’ is either present or it is not.

We have an innate desire to derive meaning from experience. So, again, the question is whether what we experience has meaning for us.

We came to London to be immersed in a multicultural environment that might challenge us. Never did I truly understand that I would learn so much about myself.  Being outside my habits. Without my comforts. Beyond the boundaries of my paradigm.

That’s the answer. I have to invest in another human being to learn more about me. I have to seek others to be found. I have to question my ideas and listen to the big wide world to know myself. How else will I realize where the whole ends and I, as just a tiny part, begin (and vice versa)?  It’s so important that there is darkness and there is light.

Even the big, wide sky is a sign. The Pioneer Woman said so, too.

‘You have to love the grey skies. You have to appreciate the fog, the mist, and the rain…’ Jamie Cullum.

There she was in my doctor’s office – a beautiful young woman who could not read the English questionnaire she had been given. For some reason she sat next to me.

And then there were the two people who stopped me needing directions as I hobbled home from the hospital lab.

I could have thought nothing more of it. But my eyes are open. I am not to give up or give in. There is still much more in me left to give – more than I am aware I have left in reserve. We are going to be ok.

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