Jess' Jamaican Diary Entry #5: Sure-Footness and Healing

Everyday that passes I have to come to grips that it happened again, and everyday I feel this swirl of anger mixed with fear, disappointment, and hurt--but mainly disappointment. Last night The Dreamer, My Person and I pulled cards and I asked what I was supposed to learn from this and the card I pulled read: Take a lesson from the spider. She works tirelessly to prepare her web, unbeknownst to those around her. However many times her work may be damaged, she tends to the repairs as soon as she notices they are needed. She never postpones, and she never seeks attention--her strength is in her ability to blend into her surroundings. She does what she needs to do without wasting energy, and when all her preparations have been tended to, she is able to be utterly still, utterly alert, and to wait in trust that eventually some tasty opportunities will come her way. I closed the book. Repair. Be still. Wait in trust. I can do that I thought. Lessons from the spider.

Two days ago I went to a waterfall and got to climb the rocks around it and wade in the freezing cold rushing water, funny that anything would be freezing cold in Jamaica. Anyway, the guides that showed us around the falls hopped across the rocks as if it were their nature. The spider on the web, balancing and moving with absolute sure footedness. I contemplated this idea of being so sure of your next move, of trusting both your body and nature absolutely and simultaneously. I want to be so sure. Not so much at jumping rocks on a waterfall, but metaphorically as I move from one place to the next, I want to be sure. One thing I am sure of is that I left that worry in the ocean the night I jumped.

And just to be sure, I was freer than free, I gave more to the water than expected. I lost my sunglasses in the ocean. A wave came and thrust me from water back to earth taking with it a token of my material attachment. Next my hair ties. Both on my wrist, robbed by the ocean who proved to be domineering and relentless on this day. After this I surrendered to it. I didn't think it would make as big of a difference on my experience of the water as it did, but it felt so liberating not to care, that I wondered why it'd taken me 29 years to do so, and before the time ended I wondered when I could do it again. When I told him about it, he was mean and it stung on my skin more than the salt water had. I was reminded of every verbal abrasion I'd had before. Not just from him but from others and mainly from myself. And with my skin so raw from the water salt and sand, I made a commitment right then to be gentle with myself and not to tolerate those who were not gentle with me.

I have four more days in Jamaica and I am already planning my return. I have to come back, because this place, in the quiet cracks between vacation and work and play, I have learned so much about myself. I can put a flag up here. I just want to be able to carry all the lessons back with me when I leave.