The joy and the pain can coexist simultaneously.
I am learning this. And just now I had a revelatory flash moment of experience of it.
It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I was up early this morning, did some last minute cleaning, showered and dressed by 9:30a. The windows are open. Sunlight is streaming in. I've got some lovely jazz playing on the radio. One of my favorite scented candles is burning with a soft glow. It's peaceful and beautiful.
I just finished entertaining a visit from the lady who runs the Sheltie Purebred Dog Rescue. She has matched me with a five-year old male Sable who needs a new home. I'm nervous, but excited (but nervous). The idea of Sheltie love and companionship in my home again is a nice thought that stirs a place in my soul that I thought might be dead - and dead for reasons beyond just the loss of Naomi last year. Dead because of all the rest that's transpired in that year. But there's a feeling of passion, love, excitement, commitment... I feel it all still alive within me. Maybe it can all come fully to life again.
Yesterday I spent the morning and early afternoon with my family - sister, brother-in-law, two lovely nieces, and my Dad. We visited Saltwater State Park in Des Moines to take advantage of extraordinary beachcombing due to an extreme low tide. We wandered the beach encountering beautiful and curious creatures. I took dozens of photos. Hah - "dozens"? Who am I kidding! I downloaded 716 images from my camera when I got home last night. :) My heroic brother-in-law was a terrific amateur field guide, hunting through the water as it lapped up in waves into his rubber boots, looking for creatures to show us. He found two Moon Snails, a beautiful jellyfish that made me think of the character in the movie "Julie & Julia" attempting to poach an egg, several brightly colored starfish, and numerous different species and sizes of crabs. He turned over large rocks so we could see the sea life underneath them, and wasn't afraid to hold anything in his hand so we could examine and photograph it. My sister packed a spectacular picnic lunch that we shared companionably after the tide came in and chased us off the beach and after we were famished from our nearly 3 hours of walking through the rocks and sand.
After parting ways with my family, I decided to pull out my map book and used it to wend my way first to a nearby marina where I was able to photograph a couple of kiteboards (a sport I honestly think I would like to try sometime - I will have to add some photographs to this post sometime later). Next I wandered to a couple of parks, where I enjoyed the scenery and took more photographs.
It was a satisfying day, if a bit sad and lonely, nostalgic. But I felt proud that I had made the most of it.
After the Sheltie Rescue lady left today, I once again pulled out my Thomas Guide mapbook and started investigating where I could go exploring today. I'd hoped to get out early enough to see today's low tide, for a reprise of yesterday's delightful excursion, but that didn't work out. But then I read on Tweeters about birds spotted today at the Union Bay Fill and I grew excited about going there again, given the beautiful pictures I was able to take just a week or so ago when I was there.
It was so great to feel excited about heading out - even all by myself - to go exploring and to take pictures! As I felt that excitement, even as I noted my sadness that is still with me every moment over the losses of the last year, I suddenly realized that it really is true that joy and pain can coexist, that they can be with us simultaneously. I experienced a lot of joy during the weekend, a lot of moments of "full life," and yet there was also a lot of sadness, too. But for the first time I experienced in a truly new way how perhaps the joy and the pain, each separate and whole and pure, can coexist, neither totally compensating for or overriding the other, like holding them both, one in each hand, observing and experiencing the weight of them together simultaneously in this one life.
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