Loss, and grief, and the after-time with my aunt, brought hard but healing graces. In their light, I learned to see the world, and myself, and this awkward, luminous trek of life, through a softened and gentler lens.

I learned that love is an ongoing conversation. In making a deep commitment, I co-participate in the ongoing conversation of life. I begin to understand that we are all traveling a multi-faceted journey….interwoven with the multifaceted journey of our country, our culture, the world, our splendorous and struggling planet.

Any love room we make with another person is a site of that co-participation. Sometimes all we can do is show up. We can continue our own tiny part of the ongoing conversation of love, with patience and gratitude, and a visceral faith in our being-here-ness.

In my love room with life, I am constantly taught – about the multiplicity of ways to travel through this life, and about trusting that even the impossibly hard and confusing things are somehow part of the stunning and mysterious unfolding of the world.

The following is a little note, from Year 2, on the ongoing conversations of love with my aunt

3/9/12

I am beginning to think that anything real is complicated. Even the love room isn’t so easy sometimes — the lush loveliness of care, all the differences and edges, what it takes to keep showing up, even when things are hard. Complicated, and humbling—and still worth it.

We were complicated, too, you and me: never exactly matching up, but leaning toward each other with the best of intentions. Even now, we still show up.