In the silence there is only possibility. In possibility there is hope. In hope there is possibility.

These thoughts drifted in and through my mind this morning as I sat in meditation, letting my body sink into the silence. The silence, and its companion stillness, feed my soul’s yearning for me to know peacefulness, harmony, oneness.

Some mornings, the silence evades me. “Time is passing,” my critter whispers. “You don’t have time for meditation.”

“But if she has time for writing, why doesn’t she have time for meditation?” my voice of reason counters.

The critter laughs. Throws back his head and bays at the invisible moon it cannot see hanging somewhere in the darkness outside my office window.  “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s only so much time and writing is more important than her taking time to get still so she can drift off into la la land.”

I sit between the two, feeling stranded, lost, almost hopeless. I want to heed my voice of reason. She knows what’s best for me. But the critter has a point. There is only so much time before I have to get ready to go to work.

Which voice will I heed?

This morning, I heeded my voice of reason. I took ten minutes for meditation before starting to write. Which, given that this post is now about my experience of trying to avoid what I know is good for me, shows how much the silence informs my writing.

I wasn’t going to write any of this when first I sat down at my desk earlier this morning. The beginning of this post was going to be, “I had only 15 more cards to paint when a text from my stepson arrived on my phone, ‘You’re in. Ticket at the door under 36?'”

36? performs at Festival Hall

36? is the name of my stepson’s band. Dubbed Calgary’s ‘band to watch’ for 2015 by several media outlets, 36? was playing a concert last night as part of CBC Radio 1’s Sunday music program, The Key of A. The performers had been provided two tickets each. He’d given one to his dad and the other to his girlfriend. We’d tried to purchase tickets but online sales said they were sold out.

Fact is, they weren’t. When TC, my stepson arrived at the theatre, he scored me one.

I had only 15 more cards to paint. It was 8:22. The show started at 8. I was in painting clothes and immersed in my process. I had 70 cards to paint and was almost done. I needed to get them done. I like crossing things off my list of “Things to get done to be ready for the wedding.” It would be 9 by the time I got there…

To stay home or to go?

Both critter and the voice of reason agreed on this one, GO!

55 Thank you cards done. 15 more to go.

For the critter, the win came from not letting me finish something I’d set out to do several hours earlier. The cards are to accompany the ‘party favours’ we’ve ordered for the wedding. I could have left them blank but they look so sweet and springlike with the flowers all painted up. I was actually smiling as I painted them!

And then, I thought about the conversation we’d had earlier in the day when my dear friend Kerry Parsons came over to talk with us about the wedding ceremony and our vows. Yours is a story of hope, she said. Of possibility. Of love always winning.

She’s right. Even after broken hearts and shattered dreams. Even after I do’s cast out into fate with the intention of  falling into love forever, only to fall apart long before forever came, we are courageous enough to turn up for each other and say, I do. I do believe in Love. I do believe in marriage. I do believe in giving love a chance because in the end, what matters most, is love. And our love is all about our families. It’s all about C.C. and I, not just as two people joining together into a single matrimonial unit but as two families coming together as one.

The voice of reason was right. I can paint anytime. I can’t be with C.C. and listen to his son, our son, perform at Festival Hall anytime. I can’t sit beside him every night of the week and hold his hand and watch his face beaming with pride as he watches his son leap and dance and sing and play his guitar and pound on his keyboard as he throws his whole being into his performance.

I can’t do that anytime. I must take the time to do it when I can.

And I can only do that when I choose to put aside what I’m doing and focus on being with the one I love, so that together we can celebrate what we cherish most; our family.