Return to Work (in Progress) Part 1

I have written often of the "small world" of my back deck - here and here - and here  and (sheesh) here where I cocooned my first summer after my crash, reading, writing and just learning how to live inside my body and yet be part of the world that existed just outside my patio doors.

It was my haven---a morning glory entwined gazebo, purple-pink sunrises, warm breezes and warmer coffee.  From the comfort of my chair, I could watch the "big world" go by over my fence.  

Each morning, mass transit swallowed waiting patrons, only to spit them out at the end of the day as they returned home.  I imagined them all going to work-- happy, competent, well adjusted and 'normal'. 

At the end of the day, they came home--- mostly looking like their same happy, competent, well adjusted, 'normal' selves.   It made me feel small and broken and terrified---and definitely not normal.  

  

The "big world" was too much for me, and I stopped looking over the fence.   It had swallowed me up and spit me out broken and bruised.

My deck and yard became my "big world".  It was something I could control.  If I weeded and watered and pruned, I saw benefits to my work.  If I sat quietly, I could focus on the words in a book and have the words make some sense.  I could create words and pictures with no expectations or rules and just because I felt like it.  

And my small world became me.  Each blooming flower, each bird at the feeder, each page read, each blog post written on my deck planted the seed of a new way of thinking, of managing, of understanding. 

Thoughts could be thought and not judged.  Feelings could be felt but not lost in. Questions could be asked, but not answered. 

It was ok to not know...

to not finish something....

to give up....

to give in....

In my backyard, I learned these things could happen, and I would be ok.

The year that followed was spent tending my inner garden.  Flowers of FEEL, BRAVE, TRUST, FLOW and RECEIVE grew each time I watered the seeds I had planted that summer.  

And with every garden, you need rain to make things grow.  So each dark, wet, suffocating day that I came through the other side of, only made me stronger, my connection to self more organic and alive. 

And then, the GREAT BIG WORLD came kicked down the fence.  It was time to return to work......