My mistress is the sea

Today a friend of mine spoke, on her blog, about the need for some silence for a while, and that that got me thinking...in the slow, lazy way that thinking happens after some great acupuncture, which I also had today.
When she said she needed more silence, less busy-ness in her world, my mind began a series of associations like an old movie flickering on.

The scene opened in my clinic 14 years ago. 1997 was full of "the adventure of healing" I had 2 abnormal PAP smears, followed by an abnormal biopsy, followed by an in-office surgery to my cervix.
After healing, the should've-been-perfect PAP was abnormal, as was the next biopsy, followed by a big ol' in the hospital surgery.
The quarterly PAP's the next year, & the biannual ones for the next two years & every one after that have been fine.
But a ten days after the second surgery, after having flown across the country and back, and jumping back into my clinical schedule that was unmerciful (though I still couldn't feel that then) I began hemmoraging at work.
I called my doctor, who, of course, had me come right over. When he examined me he said he was at a loss to understand what he was seeing. All the hemmoraging and clotting, which had started out of the blue, was coming out of a wound the size of a pinhole, he said.
"I don't know why that would happen.", he mused.
As soon as he said it my body told me, in words in my head, why & I simply replied "I do."
There was nothing medical to do so he sent me home.

My body said "You have to stop."
I knew what it meant. Stop working every waking moment six days a week.
Stop making my life about what everybody else needed.
Stop ignoring myself.
It took years and years to turn that ship around, but I started then.

So when my friend spoke to slowing down, being more silent, and that movie appeared out of the recesses of partially learned lessons, I asked my body, "Is this more of that? More needing to be present for me? More dropping of context? More silence inside?"

Yes. It feels like a yes.

I don't think it will take as long this time to turn that ship. I used to kid with my friends that I was trying to turn the Queen Mary back then; that you could yank on that wheel a long time before any movement would be seen in its path on the sea.
I sail more a 20 foot yacht these days...
Still not a speedboat, but not a behemoth.

When I look at my compass, so far, I see the moon.
I am slowly moving my head, trying to understand what the bright reflection, the craters, and the lunar pull of all tides means. I am used to seeing  North South East West.

I hear the moon as she swishes the oceans within.
There will be a new sailing.