I’ve been tucked away in a gorgeous lakefront home in South Frontenac since Tuesday night, on a writing retreat with three dear friends and colleagues who inspire me each week with their talent and tenacity.
This space I’ve created for myself has given me room to tackle a couple of chapters on the YA novel I’ve been slowly piecing together. I’ve also filled a journal and started a brand new one. And of course, I’ve been posting here as promised.
Creator friends, I cannot tell you the value of a few days of uninterrupted space where the intention is only to ‘make’. Sure, I’ve also filled the time with hiking, running, yoga, meditation and paddling, but I cleared my work schedule to focus on my writing and here I am. It occurs to me that I need to do this seasonally. What a healing experience this has been. What a way to recognize myself again as a writer.
Maybe it’s because I’m moving slowly and breathing deeply that I seem to be excavating and articulating things I haven’t quite had the words for yet. This tells me something vital about the pace with which I’ve been living. This tells me something about slowing down and making more space.
And so, in this spirit of articulation, today I’m going to tackle love. Not self-love, not a mother’s love, but the kind of romantic partnership I envision for myself when the time is right on my journey.
I’ve learned that it is futile to try to shape or control other people. I’ve learned that it’s all too easy to project things on lovers that I wish to see, but are not in fact, actually there. I’ve learned that I can ignore the clear indicators that alert me that someone is all wrong because I’m dazzled by attraction. I’ve had friends suggest I make a list of exactly the kind of person I wish to attract, and the qualities I want in my next partner. This doesn’t feel right anymore. Instead, I’m going to list the qualities in myself that I would like to have supported and illuminated by my next romantic partnership.
Phew. I’m actually feeling nervous…
I want to move in softness with gentle conversation, soothing touch, sympathetic listening, curiosity, and empathy.
I want to always be connected and searching for what is true to me. What my real feelings are, where my essential needs lie, how moments, touches, revelations feel deep in my bones. I want to understand my impulses and reactions and if I don’t immediately make those connections, I want safety and stillness until I can discover what they are.
I want to feel safe. To know that I am treasured and valued enough to lean deeply into trust. I want to be secure in the knowledge that my partner will be clear and truthful about any matter that affects my safety and security, and the safety and security of the space we are creating together.
I want to be clear and honest. I want to illuminate the beauty I see in the simple ways my partner experiences life. I want to acknowledge the ways in which they make me feel honored and valued and beautiful. I want there to be no confusion about how I feel about them when I look at them, when they touch me, when they share their vulnerable places. I want them to feel that I am safe and steady.
I want to stay connected to love and vulnerability when I am faced with conflict and difficult conversation. I want to feel secure enough with a partner to know that I am not in danger of being abandoned, deceived, or manipulated when things are not in perfect harmony.
I want to be a mother. I want to share my children’s lives with the deep awareness that the person they are sharing time with is someone who values them as people first, and then as my children who are the most important people in my life. I want those bonds to be strong, and honored as entities that exist beyond my romantic relationship with my partner.
I want to be financially healthy. To respect the value and energy of currency. To protect my wealth and grow it with intention and trust so that I may travel, and learn about the world, and someday have a home on a lake.
I want to live fully in my writing. To have space for the pursuit of my craft no matter how I may be earning money to live. I want to trust that I am supported in this, and that my partner believes in my talent and possibility.
I want to be alive in my sexuality, and by extension, in my sensual approach to the world. I want to be a sexual being until my body and soul decide that I no longer need to be connected to the life force in that way. I want my sexuality to be entirely mine, and something that I choose to share, that does not require another person to define it or unleash it. I want to explore, celebrate, understand, challenge, and revere my sexuality with a partner who is unafraid to take a similar, spiritual approach to their sexual self, with their own commitment to a healthy awareness and understanding of their sexuality.
I want nature whenever and wherever I can find it. Walks in the woods, through fields of wild flowers, on the beach, by the canal, quiet moments under trees, camping adventures. I need to be connected to the world in this way.
I want excellent food. I want to cook in a kitchen full of music, with a glass of wine on a slow Saturday, and then savor my efforts by candlelight. I want to wander through the farmer’s market, into cheese shops, visit local bakeries, splurge on impeccable restaurants, and I want to enjoy food from all over the world.
I want to be healthy. I want to move my body, strive for increased strength and flexibility, choose what I feed myself with care, enjoy physical activity with my partner, who I will need to help keep me motivated.
I want family. I want to share my happiness and abundance with my parents, my brother, my aunts, and my cousins. These people will always be an important part of my life, and my relationships with them are something I would love to share.
I want friends. My friends know me from all angles, and still they love me. I want to enjoy their excellent company with someone who will see exactly why I love these people.
I want books, and music, and art, and film, and theatre, and dance. I want to be in touch with my local artistic community and involved in contributing to its overall vibrancy.
I want magic. I’m not religious, but I feel connected to something larger than this life I’m living. I look for magic every day. Some people might trade the word ‘beauty’ for ‘magic’. Whatever we call it, I believe in it, and I need to always make space for it to find me.
As I write this list, I’m clear on the fact that as a lone wolf (which my son has taken to calling me) I’m actively living this. The wonder will be in finding someone who can see these qualities in me, and celebrate them. Someone who will never attempt to alter or diminish them. Perhaps the right person will even help me add a few qualities I’ve never considered. The next time around I will guard these qualities and never compromise them.
Now, as far as a list of qualities I want in someone else, I’d say the following is a pretty good marker. Again, the real power has been in identifying how to live these truths on my own. This poem came to me on this retreat, first in a conversation on the drive up with my friend Lena who told me about it, and then in an amazing coincidence as Lena spotted the book tied to this poem sitting on her writing desk on the retreat. Check out the dedication page:
The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesnt interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.
Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/the-invitation-by-oriah-mountain-dreamer