The last 9 days have flooded me with complex gifts.

In my early thirties, I took guitar lessons for a year. I had horrible performance anxiety. My fingers flailed and turned cold whenever I was asked to demonstrate anything at all. I loved my teacher, and could not reward him with any show that I was learning anything.

I quit when we had a second baby--overwhelmed by the beauty and demands of an infant and a toddler. But over the years when the kids were young,in my own time and in my own way, I paid attention to what I’d been taught. I practiced alone. The training I received kept giving to me for many years after the teacher was no longer around.

I haven’t begun to absorb or know how to use the gifts I’ve received these 9 days, or from this whole strange quest. But I have no doubt what I am receiving will feed me, and through me perhaps others, for the rest of my life.