All I can say is, thank goodness I don’t have an immobile perspective. I mean on some things I do, but I am learning to be looser with other things.

I think it may have to do with being able to endure that moment when you feel as if you might explode— from anger, from fear, from anticipation or just not knowing— when you can get to the other side you are almost always rewarded. You taste something new, dodge hate or be relieved of a weight you’ve carried.

Family. It isn’t easy, steeped in regret, dashed hoped, exorbitant expectations and it-is-what-it-is-ness. It is also what I feel like I always turn to, it s the place I turn inside when I am at a loss, or when I need the comfort of immutability. As permanent as the sun rising each day. I am in a profound place of grace as I have moved past the moment I thought was impossible, and am open and present. Loved and loving.

I’ve not been writing as much lately as the push and pull of life, advancing Adirondack winter and the unavoidable bugs of back-to school rock our house. My last few posts have been wistful. I think when you find yourself between so many beginnings and endings, it’s kind of natural to get caught up in fearing or bracing for more.

I got an email that said: “Try not to ache so much about the past; your memories of them are always tempered by the moment of your recollection, so sometimes they’re bitter sweet and other times they’re just sweet.”

It gave me pause and after that it gave me license to just revel. I think I might have rocked a little far to the side of intellectualizing, and so now I find myself scooping up bits of birch bark to examine with Ave, roaring at Fin completely out of the blue to make her eyes bug out of her face as she reacts and then dissolves into hysterics. Briar and I galloped to school. Silly, unscripted and delicious.

It is what it is, and it’s pretty damn spectacular.

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