excavation.

It's a quiet morning. I can hear some traffic outside my window and it sounds like it has been raining. Last night we went out with a dear friend who is now sleeping on our living room floor. Mark is still sleeping beside me and I am alone with my laptop listening to the world.

Once again I have been lurking through the pages of other people's blogs. I haven't been leaving many comments or writing much of my own stuff. I'm not sure why. I'm feeling a bit shy and a bit edgy. I feel like every time I write it sounds like the same old thing. I am constantly writing about wanting more, needing to change, needing to become all of myself. This morning I think I am bored of myself.

Living in the UK for the first time I couldn't put my finger on what was so fundamentally different about it. I knew when I walked on the cliffs near where I live that it felt different. I finally figured out that there is a real history here. (I wrote about the difference between North America and the UK here.) The people here have a real sense of things being 'done' a certain way. They are blessed with thousands of years of history. No matter where you go in the UK it feels like someone else has been there before. They are forever having some treasure being dug up that has worked its way up from where it was dropped hundreds of years ago. That's a lot of good reasons to continue to sift through the dirt.

(I paused here for a walk down to the sea. I needed to think about where this was going.)

But is it worth it - the digging I mean - is it worth the dozens of deep empty holes? The dirt under your fingernails? Would it be easier to sit cross-legged on top of the earth and let the sleeping treasures lay where they are? Are they better off lying there in the dark? Would I be able to enjoy the wind on my face knowing that there was so much more to uncover under the layers? Am I happier learning about myself? Am I better off making leaps of faith and understanding even though I am often thrown back five steps shortly after making them? Would I be better off to just get on with my life on the surface? Should I stop digging?

For me there is no question. I can't help it. I am on a journey. Trying to figure it all out is a part of who I am. After reading this yesterday I have decided that I must continue in my excavation.

A quest, it seems to me, stems from the intuitive belief that the key to our wholeness lies in the expression of what we've glimpsed in ourselves but not yet touched. A quest is connected to the you that reaches beyond itself to the thread that connects one human being to another." - Geneen Roth

I am not on a dig it seems. I am on a quest. I like that a lot better.