(#134/365) Offerings

"Underneath our ordinary lives, underneath all the talking we do, all the moving we do, all the thoughts in our minds, there is a fundamental groundlessness. It's there bubbling along all the time. We experience it as restlessness and edginess. We experience it as fear. It motivates passion, aggression, ignorance, jealousy and pride, but, we never get down to the essence of it." - Pema Chodron


Title: Marble Canyon, Yoho National Park, Alberta Canada
Flickr User Krista Eleman

My sister, Heather

I don't mention my sister often - because we had a complete highly negative - extremely dramatic falling out about 20 years ago.

I'll be the first to admit that the man I was in my 20s was irresponsible, angry and often completely incomprehensible. My sister and I last saw one another in 1991 - and last spoke to one another when my Dad died in 2003. My sister is capable of serious anger and can go from being nice to all caps screaming banshee of negativity in less than a second. She often likes to bully to get her way. (and we all know how I feel about angry people with bossy/bullying tendencies now don't we?)

Well - fast forward twenty one years to three weeks ago - when my Mom and my brother bootedintexas visited her. Well - in the aftermath - Drew wrote her and said (and I paraphrase) "isn't it time you stopped being angry at Bob and at least tried to write him a letter and reconnect?" - her initial answer to Drew was "no, thank you" - but then surprised me with a letter (via email) last evening.

I spent almost all night writing a response - choosing words very very carefully. I laid out a plan - that must remain anger-free - for us to start talking to one another. Email letters first - and keep it simple.

I don't know if I'll hear back. but it was very interesting to hear from her after so long.

So - I hope something comfortable and nice comes out of it. We'll see how she responds. She said she was doing it because "it was important to Mom and Drew" - and I told her that I hoped eventually she'd be doing it because she wanted to. This could be very interesting.