Boy, Do I love Avocados

I've written before about finding balance in complementary opposites, how seemingly opposing forces (life/death, joy/sorrow, courage/fear) are interconnected and interdependent. These ideas float through my mind often, sometimes next to thoughts of avocado admiration or memories of Full House episodes ending in poignant hugs. I think that big important ideas brew in our brains, starting out as a word or image, becoming a thought, eventually joining with other words and images and thoughts to make a point and gather meaning and eventually surprise us in an Aha moment, like when the kettle whistles or the caffeine kicks in. For years the word Balance has stood out to me, then all these Yin Yang ideas started making themselves known, and today I think I came across another piece of this thought process. I'm reading a book called Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Naomi Remen, a book a friend loaned to me and I took warily because it seemed kinda hokie but is actually turning out to contain some striking truth. Here's the part I want to share, about coming to recognize and accept that we have in us both sides of everything: "We are capable of fear and courage, generosity and selfishness, vulnerability and strength. These things do not cancel each other out but offer us a full range of power and response to life. Life is as complex as we are. Sometimes our vulnerability is our strength, our fear develops our courage, and our woundedness is the road to our integrity. It is not an either/or world. It is a real world." (A full range of power and response to life!) She goes on to write about the possibility of our shortcomings turning out to be our strengths and things we are proud of turning out to be shortcomings. Sometimes I feel like two different people, probably because I am in between who I was and who I am becoming. It's like I see myself across a crowded train station and I can neither call out or hear my own voice. There are all these parts of me, seemingly opposing, and my challenge is to find the balance and realize that I am one whole person. I don't know when the two Jennys will meet up, whether we will board the same train or meet up someday in another country. But it's all one journey, just real and complex, hopefully ending in a poignant hug. (Whatever happened to predictability?)