One Another

It makes such a difference to be surrounded by the love of friends and family.  There are so many things I'm learning from my experience in Japan, and the absence of this simple thing--so easy to take for granted, so easy to forget in the midst of the accommodations one must make in order to live with one another--has made it so much stronger when I suddenly become bathed in its warmth.  Right now, I'm so open to it having been so removed from it.  People are people, and sometimes the accommodations we must make for one another can be difficult and we can become impatient, offended, disappointed, hurt.  These things can simmer below the surface, they can flare up and the pain can last for a long time.  What a strange dance it is to learn to be with one another, to learn to feel that love which is the absolution of fear, which gives us the confidence, the calm, the peace to do and live as we search to live.  Beyond the irritations, beyond the assaults to the ego of our personalities, there is another way, but it can be so hard to find it, to feel it, to practice it. Right now I'm living in the glow of possibility of ideal love.  But it is only one side of the reality of life, of being a living human being.  It is a very real challenge to learn to live with one another.  And Japan is helping me learn this.  It is helping me learn to live in a place that feels cold to me and to overcome that.  It is helping me to see the warmth that might be taken for granted were I constantly to enjoy it.  How lucky we are to have one another, if only we give ourselves to another to have.