Never give from the depths of your well, but from your overflow. It’s a Sufi expression, and when I read it, I thought about all the times I’d given too much of myself away, to please, to be loved, to be noticed, to feel a part of, to quiet the hollow knocking inside. How does one refill, rejuvenate? What creates the watering holes of our lives, the places where we finally trudge past desert and stand in green plenty and drink until our thirst is slated? And how long do we drink?
There’s another saying––in the form of a question––which seems a piece of this: What feeds your soul and makes you glad to be alive? I’d forgotten what fed me at the time I ran across that question and answering it has been a long process. I want to be a green tree, sturdy and old, wise and grounded, shading my loved ones and any stranger who wanders into my midst, but my roots have to access a perpetual well, a spring that has no bottom. That sounds like all the names of God to me.
Karleen Koen — writing life 
exactly and thank you. P