Reflections

I rose early yester-morn to drive Buffaloheart to work.  As I drove home, I reflected on the last fourteen years of my life.  So much has happened in those fourteen years:

 I made Alaska my home...

 I became a wife...

and mother...



 

I lost a mother...

 

 

and some friends...

 

 

I took my first steps as a homeschooling parent...

 I survived countless days of temperatures I never imagined wanting to experience...
 

I slid down slides made of ice while plastered with children...

I met and have begun to cultivate relationships with some truly amazing people (and pictured here are just a few)...

 

I learned to knit...

 

And that is just the tip of the iceberg...and the fact that I have actually seen icebergs means I truly understand what that saying means - there is so much more beneath the surface!  We don't even see about 70% of the iceberg because it is under water! 

 

Becoming a wife, a mother, raising a family, running a home...these are things that can be seen on the surface.  And when I look in the mirror, and look just long enough to see the surface, I wonder if it is enough.  Is this ALL that I do?  Is this ALL that I am?

I feel this especially when someone asks "and what do you do?" or "wow, you look really tired, did you work [outside the home] today?"  As if I might only be tired by working a "job".

Then I remember to look through the exterior, and dive into the depths.  We may not own a home, or have more than one car, or travel all over the world or the country (or even the state!) - all things that, for my generation at least, seem to determine whether or not you've "made it" or become successful.

 We may not have or do all of these things, but we have each other, we have a home in one of the most beautiful places I can imagine, we are blessed to be members of  a community - an extended family, really - of creative, talented, conscious and caring individuals and families.  We are free to raise our children and educate them in ways that work for all of us.  We are friends with hunters, farmers and fishers who live in harmony with the land, love life and share their harvest.  I have learned to use my hands to create beauty and use in service of others.  I have learned to cook, bake, garden, shoot a bow, work with wood, make medicine, splint a broken arm, milk a goat, ski, throw a javelin, felt with wool, make pickels and jam...

I have laughed so hard it hurts...

I have experienced moments of peace and beauty that I cannot even find words to describe...

 

 

 

I have given birth, I have supported others in birthing into being their precious little ones, I have held my mother's hand as she journeyed from this world into the next, and I have dried the tears of a friend as she greived for the loss of her husband.

 

 

 

 

I have learned to love. 

 

Unconditionally.

 

 

 

 What more could I possibly need?  Of course, there are goals, dreams, aspirations, hopes. There are places we'd like to visit, new things we'd like to try, people we'd like to get to know better.  There are always discoveries to make, lessons to learn, mistakes to correct and wrongs to make right.

But in this moment, right now, I know that it is enough.

 I am enough.

And I am blessed beyond measure.