On walking my invisible dog

I threw my Maggie coat on over my pajamas this morning (so-called because some tourist once said to his wife while I cycled past their taxi in said coat and a headscarf knotted under my chin,"Hey, look honey, there goes Maggie Thatcher!) . A lick of spit smeared away last night's mascara and I headed out to the park. My training schedule forbids running today, but I cannot face breakfast without stretching my legs. And it feels deliciously illicit to be abroad in the world on a Tuesday morning with one's pajamas on. To a girl unequipped with the ability to do nothing, this is sheer luxury. Every other body is hurrying somewhere, and I am just drifting off to gaze at cherry blossoms. The park is full of them. Their calm beauty belies the vigorous energy seething through every stem. I am the only person unaccompanied by a dog or by one of a bewildering array of child-conveying capsules, so I imagine our dearly departed Tuffy and Stamford are with me. Stamford, a noble Ridgeback, would be placidly pacing beside me, and Tuffy (the Maltese) would be agitating among the Rottweilers. A dog is as far as I'm willing to look down Reproduction Road today. I have no desire to be pregnant now, to share my body with another, to commit to providing someone with a good life when I'm still so uncertain what a good life actually is. I do believe every human is born with unfulfilled potential, and it is good to develop and share the gifts we were given. But I confess that I feel encumbered by my promise too often, and back away from trying at all, which is the corner of myself I wish I could obliterate forever. The Scaredy Cat. She Who Shies Away. Mandela was so right when he quoted Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened in shrinking so that others won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, its in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. But what is the key, where is the switch, that makes words leap off a page and turns them into invisible forces within us? That's what I'm searching for, in this Tuesday morning park among the cherry blossoms, and everywhere.