The Music in My Heart

Today I received a letter from P, a therapist I saw regularly about 12 years ago. (The number 12 looks odd; it really seems like a lot longer. I guess that's how "lifetimes" go ...)

When I wrote to P, I thanked her for not only helping me with the acute problems in my life--namely the risky, desperate ways in which I was trying to overcome loneliness and depression--but also for helping me the lay the groundwork for learning that continues to this day.

Just recently I read Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and lightbulbs were going on for me--seeds of thought planted in my talks with you were finally in full bloom. (Sorry to mix metaphors with lightbulbs and flowers!)

I also thanked P for helping me to understand how the act of respecting and loving oneself translates into respectful, loving relationships with others, and how I hope to demonstrate that truth to my son and stepson through word and deed.

On the couch in your office (and I say couch not as a cliché--I do think you had a couch!) was where I first started to "get" that dynamic of loving oneself in order to love others.

P expressed delight in hearing from me and added that she remembers me and has sometimes wondered "what ever happened ..."

Your letter so generously fills in blanks for me. Most of all, I'm grateful we together captured something for you to build on, as you have.

P promised to keep my letter locked in her files "for an occasional reminder of what keeps me inspired." She then went to quote Wordsworth:

"The music in my heart
I bore long after it was heard no more."

What a way to sum up how this project is affecting me! If I hadn't already coined THE LETTER JAR, "The Music in My Heart" would make a great title too.

Whose music have you bore in your heart after it was heard no more?

Speaking of music, a song that takes me back to the time I was seeing P--and never fails to inspire positive thoughts of how I was emerging from my struggles--is Bittersweet Symphony by The Verve.