In a time of reworking a longtime marriage, the words of this poem are an encouragement and a clarifier for me .

“to promise what you needed to promise all along”
The rote promises made by two naive and unaware young adults are not what can hold me now. The promises I want to make now are to be fully present and true to myself first, bringing nothing more than that to the relationship; not counting on the bonds of worn out words; accepting and allowing ‘what is’ without the demand of what will be, or what must be.

“to abandon the shoes that had brought you here
right at the water’s edge”

The shoes that brought me here are dogged determination, expectations, demands, manipulations, and too, too many empty words of what could and should be and be given to me. I will walk away from those shoes on my own bare feet with their tender-soles and blistered-heels, but for now I will wait at the water’s edge, while the shadow of the mystery that is me ventures out across the water.

“not because you had given up
but because now, you would find a different way to tread”

While this poem confirmed to one pilgrim the need to leave a relationship, for me it confirmed the rightness of staying because already I have been finding a different way to tread, and I now that the path is perhaps more about personal change and transformation, than it is about the relationship. This relationship is for me, where I can best see myself in action, for better and for worse.

“and because, through it all, part of you could still walk on,
no matter how, over the waves.”

At this point in my life and journey, I consider each and every little transition where I am consciously embracing or letting go, to be another step on the lifelong path of transformation. Will I ever see transformation clearly, as a new reflection in the mirror? I don’t know. Would a seed consider the transition fr of germination to be transformation, or would that only be when true leaves form? Or buds or blooms or fruit ? Perhaps the real transformation is when it dies and leaves behind the seeds of new life. For me it is enough to feel the calls and shifts of transition and change, and trust that transformation is always happening beyond what I can see, feel or assess. Perhaps one day I will be taken aback by a new face in the mirror.