Planting

We planted a big sugar maple, atop Gil's ashes and Isaac's placenta, in a beautiful spot on the rock outcropping behind the house. Chris and Miya (and of course the delectable morsel Isaac) Gil's brother and best friend Bob and his wife and Adam and Kate et al, we all shared, held ash, let it go.  One more step into the future after Gil.

I've been thinking about loving.  I remember chewing over the Bible line "Love thy enemies" and wondering how the heck one could feel the way I thought love should feel about your enemies.  ??  And then it hit me, love wasn't about focusing on the characteristics of the moment, it was being open to, awash in, the best possibilities.  It might be a baby, or an idea, a project, or a lover.  Love was allowing yourself to see the best potential  and by seeing it, feed it's actualizing. It is able to be chosen.

When I met Gil, he didn't have many of the characteristics that my Yankee, academic family looked for in men, so I decided that instead of looking at the bottom line of all his qualities that perhaps I should fuzz my focus on them and instead look at me.  Did I like the me that being with him was bringing out?  Did he open up potential in me that without his touch wasn't possible?  Yes and yes.
So I married him and changed the trajectory of who I am and the life I'm leading.

Planting,  an act of hope, an openness to what will emerge, a day to day slog of work.  I allowed a different part of me to grow, by marrying Gil.  He continues to bring out  the potential me I sensed when I agreed to marry him.  His tree and I will continue to grow together.