I absolutely love it when a new well shows itself.
This one happens to feel extremely deep, bottomless. I do think of all wells as bottomless but for some reason my “arm,” mind, heart, and soul did not tire from dipping today or need a break or feel like I had enough for the moment, until I did.
I am heading into the familiar this week and I just know the wheels on the car are ready to go.
Familiar does of course have two sides to it. While I am reminded at all wells of what can feel like opposites and paradoxes, the gift of a well is to nourish, sustain, energize, hydrate, and inspire. It is also to carry what it offers as we leave and go on our way and to hold its gifts as lifegiving and sacred.
As I dipped into the well of familiar today, I was mesmerized by the joy I felt. Not only did it nourish me with anticipation, but memories began to show up going way, way, way, way back in my life.
It was a sense of being bathed in the beauty and senses of familiar.
The route.
Streets traveled thousands of times.
Buildings.
The river.
The mountains.
Steps.
Feelings of lifelong connection to time and space and people.
Schools.
First workplaces.
Humor.
Conversations.
Faces.
Nature.
Stores.
The brook.
Family.
Friends since childhood.
Animals.
And a million memories that begin to get spun from this place of my birth, of my first vocalization, my first home, my first family, my first pets, my first life adventures inside and outside.
I feel like I am swimming in the familiar that has been part of me for all these decades, even when not physically present. I can draw it up any time and in any place.
For a few days I get to drink of it for real.
The familiar is like this. I am laughing as I feel like I need to put the cover on the well and say, “Just let me be with what you have given me so far. As I drive tomorrow you can continue nourishing me. No cars passing us will have any idea of what is happening in mine, though I will wish for them that they did. Thank you.”
We don’t have to be in a place, or space, or present with someone to sense familiar showing up like surround sound, all enveloping. Music. Words. Travels. Expressions. So, so many things and moments.
There are also times when we say, “This feels so familiar” but we don’t know exactly why.
I love to think there is mystery in the well of familiar too, yet to be drawn from it and known.
Dip and dip and dip again at this well and see what it serves up to you.
