metaphors, good and bad / aligned and confusing, all of them are certainly a fave love language of mine. and "gotta squeeze the lemon to get the juice" is one that just came to me. it seems to work for this moment I find myself in. Time feels squeezed, or do I feel squeezed into time? My day yesterday was going straight from one thing right into the next. I did squeeze in a 7 minute hypnotherapy meditation to decompress after one thing, which felt like an exhale. And I did find inhales and exhales within each thing I squeezed into. Though I'm in a good kind of a hard at the moment. The good kind of hard of leaving things and shifting things. Leaving people and places loved by me and loving me. As I leave, I attempt to shift my understanding of leaving. As I leave, so much belonging and so many belongings surface. There's belongings to pack. There's belongings to shed. A funny belonging I've been squeezed by lately has been all the digital beeps and boops – notably pictures, videos, audio recordings. My phone is overfull of data and the iCloud and its purpose seems sillier day by day.
A little bit ago, I shed oh so many belongings in preparation for moving out of a house and into the world. My mind started playing anew with 'belonging' and 'belongings' during that stretch of a chapter of life. What belongings help me belong? What belongings hinder my belonging? My mind hasn't stopped playing now that I'm out into the world.
The sun is rising as I write. I saw the growing half moon last night as I left one spot of belonging. The sun and moon, aren't they belongings of mine too? Or am I their belonging?
Culling through the too many digital pictures and videos, I find some inhales and exhales. The cull offers me retrospection. And reflection and retrospection, receiving that is what gives me permission to let go. I get to drink the juice of each moment again, in a way. Get to sense that moment from this now moment. And in that, some beeps and boops I decide I want to continue to tuck close and some I feel ready to release out into the 'recently deleted' and then yes, the, vastness of 'yes, I do want to delete this forever.'
But lemon juice is sticky and sticky can be hard to delete forever, and, and, and I actually might not want to delete this sticky forever. I actually want to remember the sticky,
I actually want to remember the good hard,
I actually want to remember the sour and the sweet.
Why? Well, I remember spring and summer 2020 and how memories were such a treat to roll around in. Those memories made me into a deep dark truffle with sugared coconut all wrapped around me. Yum. Memories of experiences too far away to re-experience, beings too far away to touch. Memories coating the now in ways that felt like writing invisible messages in lemon juice on paper, and bringing heat, love, warmth to the paper to reveal the secrets on the page.
Gosh, I've attempted a momentary re-read of what's come to the page thus far and it all is simply wanting to come out here before an edit, if an edit is even wanted at all, I do not know. Is that okay with you? I hope it's okay with you. It's going to be okay with me. [And it continues to be okay in the midst of this edit in this new now hah]
My momentary re-read was an attempt to help me remember how I got here. But seems like that remembering isn't for this moment. Seems like there is sometimes space for relishing in what is, what was, what will be. And sometimes there is no space, with all the juice seeping out from the bottom of the fridge, weeping out from the bottoms of the eyes, the sweet sour juice, it just keeps coming and maybe that's bad or maybe that's good or maybe it's both neither and both and all, and life begets life and lemons begets juice.
Lemon juice is one of the first moments of my waking into a new day. If I don't find lemon juice in my morning, something is missing. I've learned it can be okay, I can be okay, if something is missing. Even though the missing can be the hard.
Lemons are all around me in this land I'm about to leave. The sour and the sweet, I've been here for it all. Though now, I am leaving for more here over up there very soon.
