Grown Up II

Tonight I read, in response to a lamentation about "growing up" (excerpts):

"Where childhood is simple multiple-choice, adulthood is an open-ended essay question. Where childhood is your heart soaring at the site of the City's skyline, adulthood is being initiated into the architect's secret and building skyscrapers of your own. Where childhood is staring in gape-mouthed wonder at the magic of the world, adulthood is the opportunity to see your enchantment, your candleglow reflected in someone else's eyes.

Childhood is a wonderful time for discovering this life. If you play it right, though, adulthood is an even better time for taking life and creating of it whatever you will. For the living, adulthood isn't forgetting the magic of childhood... it's making it yours."

~name withheld for now

I was thinking about Vermont Villa and Seville Seraglio, the two houses I lived in during what I consider The Best Years of My Life, the most internally refining of times, the renaissance of my soul. I was thinking about the women I lived with, who reached deeper than had any man (much to my surprise and despite my resistance), woke me to the possibilities, unearthed the truest and most pure from within, loved me into being.

Several months after living together at Vermont Villa, we moved to the new house, Seville Seraglio. While I have the fondest memories of both places, their essence was each different, and after I got married and we all went our separate ways, I often thought of the move to Seville as the beginning of the end.

Distanced, now, by three years, a husband, a baby, a cat, and more outward concerns than The Great "I" that consumed most of my thoughts back then, I remember things differently, and I think the above quote gives voice to what I now see as the real difference between the two places.

Our time at Vermont was innocent and pure and exciting. Our love and discovery was so new and fun. It was the gape-mouthed-wonder days for the four of us. But with the move we took things to a new level. I have long melded the two houses together in my mind, but I realized only tonight that all the "Performance Art Nights," all the reaching to new forms of expression, all of our sharing our passion and experiences with other friends happened only in Seville. Vermont was the magic of childhood and discovery, and Seville was truly making the magic ours.

The grown-up experience of bearing our souls to others came with some pitfalls. We could probably all four say that there were things we didn't do right, or well, or with the purest of intentions or the purest of love. Or maybe I am just speaking for myself. In any case, it was imperfect. I'm not even sure we could have made it last together, had I not married and left anyway.

BUT, this is the thing... all of my most most most fond memories happened at Seville. The most edifying things we did together happened at Seville. The things I grew the most from happened at Seville. Our souls found expression in art and performance and friends and novels and music... at Seville. Seville was not just the feeling and experience of soul and passion, it was the actual embodiment and incarnation of it.

And now it's to another level, isn't it girls? Korea, India, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake, Boston. They are all recipients of our original lessons as goddesslings. Let's not forget. It's so easy to forget. Let's not forget.