BY PAMELA JO BOWMAN – MESA ARIZONA — This weekend I had a chance to be up in the White Mountains without my family. I got up very early and took myself for a walk. The air was crisp and clean. I was enveloped in that “rain on dirt musky” smell. It was enhanced with the smell of damp pine. I headed into the forest and found a tree that had been cut down. Nice place to sit and allow time for the sap to be oozing into my jeans. I sat a long time and thought in the quiet of the morning. Yes, the sky was blue and dotted with white clouds. The birds were chirping and the breeze danced and vibrated through the leaves. I noticed it all and appreciated it all, but I was trying to connect with something or someone and I found that I was the only thing there to connect to. That thought was not too appealing. Not because I was alone. I cherish the solitude. It was that I felt like a stranger to myself. It was very odd.

As I unlayer more of who I am, I seem so unfamiliar to myself. Sometimes I think it is easier to be the façade people know me to be than it is to actually be …me. I looked at my hands and they seem different. My thoughts are different. I believe they are more real, more honest, but since they seem so unfamiliar… well that terrifies me sometimes. How long have I hidden from me? What all have I hidden and for how long? Will I be able to find all of me before it’s too late?

There was a saying when I was younger, “She has gone off to find herself.” I never did that. I was too busy trying to do the right thing. So, I am doing it now. Ironically, I don’t have to go off anywhere because what I need to explore is me and I find that I am always wherever I am. It is in me. It is me. Sap and all.