“The more I see, the less I know for sure.” -John Lennon
It has been a while since a pain in my neck has captured my full attention as it has today. Something cramped in my upper back over night and all my best attempts to let it go and work it out, mostly served to remind me that it wasn’t going anywhere.
Transition is a close friend of stress, I remember and even with all the optimism and faith that I bring to this new opportunity, it is my body that is telling me the truth about how it feels.
Stepping back into the daily management of Good Clean Love, I am struck again by the truth that the more experience I have, the more I realize how much I don’t know. I am at once proud and humbled that I have been able to manifest an operation that has so much potential and complexity, that the one thing I know for sure is that I need someone more skilled than myself to guide it.
It is an interesting juncture in the back at least, this crossroads of pride and humility. The only cure is an open heart and blind faith, trusting that what is right in front of you is exactly what is supposed to be there and that there is a grace in embracing the breadth of the unknown.
This recent turn of events reminded me of one of my favorite remarks by one of the pioneers of women leadership, Susan B. Anthony. She said, “Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.”
The sifting through the unknown and finding the strength to hang onto yourself is the stray dog that we are waiting to meet. There is nothing ceremonious about a pain in the neck that catches you each time you take a deep breath, but getting to the other side of it is how we settle in. As we get to know this stray dog, the unknowing parts of ourselves, the humbling recognition of the gaps and achievements that sit side by side, it starts to get comfortable, like the dog who licks your ankle when you are doing the dishes.
