The Rare Gift of a Slow Transition

During the years I was in college, I once describe the train trip home from Philly to Connecticut as "the rare gift of a slow transition."  That phrase has been resonating again lately, as I shift back and forth from timelines externally and internally determined and I notice the effects of each.  Transition at someone else's pace, in someone else's control, can be traumatic; simply being able to make your own choices around timing, make room for your emotions as they arise, can turn the same transition into something healing and natural.  I've been experiencing a little of both.

This morning, I wake early and thoughtfully move through my space, reflecting and taking down items one by one, carefully placing them in a protective container, imagining how they may contribute in shaping a new home.  I ask myself, what do I need for this to continue to feel like home for as long as I am here?  What do I need for the coming week, month, months?  How do I create and re-create refuge among many moving parts?

This morning, I notice the sunlight through the window on a white swath of wall, on specks of dirt, on pillowcases.  I notice hunger.  I notice absence and presence.  I notice how this--where I am going, how I am going--is both what I want and not what I want.  I notice how I am beginning to create a cocoon alongside an inviting space, and I feel the tension and the difficulty and the rightness.  How do I want to engage with the world and engage with myself?  I think the question implies another one, what do I need to engage in that way?  And I think part of that answer includes safety, and safety is a quality that is so individual and so rarely acknowledged that way.  And thus we circle back to the rare gift of a slow transition, a transition that allows for feeling into safety at each step, for responding accordingly, for arriving whole.