When did this happen … I cannot be sure if there was a moment, a specific instance, but what comes to mind is a summer afternoon in Ojai, CA, the Matilija Street, a grassy loan framing the sidewalk. I balanced on a curb waiting for Chris to park. We were heading to the postoffice across the street. I remember this sidewalk, I remember the curb and I remember the brilliant greenness of the grass. And I remember the realization that came: my parents did exactly what they could do.

They did what they could. If they could be more loving, more caring, more supportive — they would be, but they could not. They were in pain, they struggled with their demons and being alive took so much effort, so much energy, so much attention that there was little to spare for others. There was little to spare for me.

I saw them, in that moment, on that afternoon, as humans. People. People I knew — not parents who should and had to and didn’t, and failed. I saw them as people and, in that moment, I ceased to be a daughter. I became Pausha.

That day was the first day of Pausha’s life. The first day of discovering Pausha. Of becoming that which is called Pausha – that which is what I am. Not a daughter, a friend, a wife, a lover, but myself.

No a citizen, a Pole, an immigrant, a legal alien, a designer, a student.

But me. Myself. And a life that is an expression of what I am.

He began to speak and I cringed. “Oh, this is not the place to be saying those things! Those people will not hear you, can’t you see that?”

The wizard stood in front of a room filled with people who have never tasted magic. They faced life’s hardships and miseries and their faces were set, their minds organized for fighting, for survival.

“Open to what you are as God” the wizard said and I cringed, again. I felt the restlessness, the surprise, the annoyance that was not yet an open anger, not yet …

I felt people around me stir uneasily within the confines of their minds … or was it me stirring? Was the discomfort, the confusion, the embarrassment theirs — or was it mine?

The wizard spoke. He spoke as though he hasn’t noticed anything. He spoke as though he did not face a room full of strangers — strangers to himself, strangers to his world, strangers to his reality.

He spoke

and the room quieted.

And then the room opened.

The organized minds relaxed,

the survival has been suspended,

faces softened.

They all opened. Opened to what they are as God.

The wizard spoke, serenely, gently, quietly. He spoke as though he hasn’t notice the disturbance, he spoke as though there was no strangeness. He spoke his words, he spoke his truth, he spoke his reality,

and there was no strangeness.

It was in Santa Barbara. Thirteen years ago, yet I remember it as though it happened last night.

It was dark. I sat at the terrace watching city lights below me twinkling in the inky southern darkness, looking at oil rigs studding the dark ocean, lit up festively like so many christmas trees. I was wrapped in a blanket, it was cold that night. I thought about myself.

I was not happy with myself on that night, thirteen years ago. The exact story of my misery escapes me now, but it hardly matters. I was not happy, I was not very present, in fact I only begun my journey to myself. Traumas, fears, insecurities, judgements, needs and wants tore at me with stiff, impassive, impatient fingers, yanking me this way and that. I was helpless in their grasp.

I thought about this that night. I thought about those fears and pains and compulsions. I thought about the darkness, the ugliness, the destructive intensity and realized suddenly that this is me. All those dirty secrets I keep hidden out of my sight — it is all me. The trauma, the pain, the craziness. All me.

It felt good. Surprisingly enough.

I still remember this feeling as though it happen last night, though it was thirteen years ago.

I felt heavy, grounded, rounded. I felt rooted. I gained mass, weight. I gained presence. I became complete.

I was no longer a disembodied goodness, no more an abstract idea of a perfect person I was supposed to be, wished to be, was going to be, yearned to be. Pretended to be.

I became real.

“Oh, if you want to leave – leave” she said, “there are many different ways, it might be that this way is not your way.”

I felt … how did I feel … rejected at first but then, once I made it back to the meditation hall and sat back down on my cushion, I was swept by a wave of warmth and support, and I realized what she did: she supported me.

Not her practice, her philosophy, her school, her lineage, her tradition, her teachings, her insight or her understanding.

She supported ME.

“You must find your way” the echo of her words rung in my ears, “you must find your way, your own way, one that will take you to yourself”.