Who am I? Who am I? A Call for Sages.

Day after day we danced in the kitchen to songs that normal people would never consider "danceable". Anais Mitchell was one of our favorite go-to musicians. Her songs finding their way into my bloodstream one at a time, month at a time, to the point where it became completely laughable, like a parody of some life-coach, hippy-dippy, braless folkfull hopeless romantic. *Flowing, she winked and whimsically waved, swirling you onto the kitchen floor for a slithering, smiling, slow-motion samba...

For the longest time, I didn't understand why this song mattered to me. That's another theme in my life: foreshadowing music. I choose songs 3-5 months too early. Now, it's clear. Now, I know why I needed a song about transmuting to fit the next lover, about not knowing who I am with my rock pulled out from under me, about the scariest question of all...

Beyond What can I become for you, for us?... Beyond What's my role in our together? there's an honest, humble realm of Who am I, unpartnered? I'm floating down into it. I'm scared. I am confronted with myself. And it makes me think of mirrors, and nature, and how the wild does not see itself like we do. Perhaps the moon, too, would have an existential crisis, if it could perceive itself, it's own existence. But that is ridiculous. The moon is just the moon. It never has to know. It just orbits the earth. It asks no questions of itself.

But me, I'm a human, for better and for worse. And us humans like to think that we can choose together or alone. It gets us into trouble. We look too far, too narrow.

In my search for self, which is really just my humble attempt to get down to the bottom of my existence, it really does feel like no one taught me how to cry in the night. And I just keep asking, Why is there still so much grief? Shouldn't this be easier? Look at me! I'm awesome. Why is it so hard to just be? 

I am 25. I am too young to have the answers. The best thing I can do is ask honest questions, like my heroine, Anais...

Didn't I gleam in my father's eye?
Who am I? Who am I?
Didn't I split my mother's side?
Who am I? Who am I?
Didn't I drink her nipple dry? 
Who am I?

So I pose this as a project to the sages of the world.

Answer how you'd like, but please, for all of us wondering and wandering at the crossroads of Who am I? and How do I belong in the grand family of things?... Why is it so hard? What's the grief of self-discovery all about? -- What's the deep, ancient wisdom that we don't yet see? What's the truth underneath our searching? -- The shape of the car keys that we've trolled the house looking for, only to find in our own two hands twenty years later?

Blog, facebook, comment, phone call, dinner party, poem, song... pick your favorite way to share your sagehood. I love you. I thank you. I'm listening with my most humble, open parts. I'd be fetching you water and food for your tales if we were ever 'round the same fire. Always, always, forever and ever, amen. Thank you.

love,
rach