I picked up Ray Bradbury's Dandelion Wine to reread yesterday.

There was a time when I read this simple, elegant tale at the cusp of summer every year. It was ritual, tradition, a sensual ushering in of summer - no, of life, of exquisite awareness, a reaffirmation that yes, I am alive. But for the past several years it's lain dormant, dusty in a bookcase, not unlike my own self-knowledge. For a time, I put myself - my care of self or, perhaps more accurately, my knowledge of who and what I really am - on the shelf where, with each passing year, it gathered a little more dust.

That's ending now. Restless, yearning, hungering for something, early this year I picked up the book of me, blew off the dust, wiped away delicate spidery cobwebs ... and opened the cover. It's an intricate, interesting process, this getting to know myself again. The soul wants nourishment after such a long dry spell.

So I began. I began with a 12-week program on creativity and creative women - a program that's now reaching its 19th week. I added a retreat on journaling, a session on meditation, another on dream analysis. Along the way came diabetes, adding yet another twist.

My old self would have scoffed, or perhaps have been less than eager to talk about chants, and meditation, and dreams. "What new age stuff? Me?" And the sneaking would begin. But my new self is intrigued, thoughtful, more willing to experiment, to experience, to entertain ideas. It's also more willing to let others drag those glasses down their noses and peer with barely disguised skepticism. "Oh, she's a little out there. Eccentric. She has four dogs, you know. She even had a family portrait taken with her and the "kids" and put it in the church directory."

So let them peer. Like a young child, I'm more than willing to make an fool of myself, provided I'm laughing and learning along the way. And in the end isn't what matters the experiences, the tears, the joy, the laughter, the questioning? I don't seem to see propriety and status quo among the important lessons of life.

Odd, then, that these experiences come when I'm nearing mid-life. Was it a waste of time for so many years when I was not so self-aware? Who can say? It's rather useless to conjecture at this point. It's enough to know that I'm turning inward, whether it's at age 24 or 44. And as my inward self takes shape and strengthens, so my outer self finds itself more rooted. As I learn more about my psyche and my physical body, I know I am not the same today as I was six months ago. In six months I will not be the same as I am today.

It's an interesting journey and, as 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding says in Dandelion Wine:

"I'm really alive! I never knew it before, or if I did I don't remember! ... I want to feel all there is to feel. Let me feel tired, now, let me feel tired. I mustn't forget, I'm alive, I know I'm alive, I mustn't forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that."

Let summer begin.