The Magnolia Moment
Sometimes we already have what we are looking for.
I got divorced when I was 32.
Later that year, I had my first post-divorce relationship and consequential break up.
If you’ve never been divorced, the post-divorce break-up can be the worst thing about getting divorced.
Everything I hadn’t been able to face, every fear, every dread, every emotion that I shored up to get through the divorce came flooding out like the Hoover dam unleashed.
It was hard.
And the timing felt really shitty.
We were driving home to Boston from Salt Lake City. At some camp site somewhere in the middle, the relationship snapped.
And I cried the whole way home.
In between bouts of sobbing, and talking, and sobbing — my eyes wandered the horizon.
At some point my gaze landed on a blooming magnolia tree. And for a moment, I forgot that I was sad.
For one timeless moment, I just stared at this totally gorgeous tree and felt peaceful.
Present moment awareness does that. It’s always there, but we forget — again and again and again, we forget.
And then something happens, a miracle, like a tree on an ordinary street in middle America that blooms huge pink flowers — and we remember. We remember the truth of our wholeness. We remember that we are fundamentally good, and not separate, and completely OKAY.
I made a wish. In that moment under the tree — I set an aspiration that one day I would own a home with a magnolia tree in the front yard.
And I knew, that there, in that home, with that tree, on that day, my life would be good — and I would be happy.
And then we kept driving and I kept crying.
We arrived after dark. He dropped me off at my house.
We hugged.
I asked him to stay over.
He said no.
I sobbed.
And as I turned to walk into my house, something in the street light caught my eye.
And there it was.
A huge magnolia tree. In full bloom. Right there, in front of my house, that I own.
We do this again and again and again. We forget. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. We forget that we are already home, that we already have what we need.
That we are, in fact, enough just as we are.
I learned two things the hard way, from my magnolia moment. For one: fuck that guy. Whoever he, or she, is. It’s not about her, or him. It’s about you. It has always only been about you, forgetting that you are already whole.
For two, when you remember, you’re not mad anymore. At anybody. Not even him, or her, or you. And then you’re free. And then you have everything you need. Right here, right now.
Even the magnolia tree you always wanted.