Tonight, I write on my Dad’s computer. The one whose background I just recently changed- from the photo he took of a small, North Carolina gas station that served the best barbecue we’d ever tasted, coming down out of the Blue Ridge mountains after a four day hike on the AT. The last words I shared here were about my Father, so it makes sense to pick up there again. 

It’s hard to know where to begin, after such a long pause. So much blank space between words. 

Necessary space. 

I am used to relying on the power of words to filter every day experiences. Trying to make life somehow safer, more beautiful, less isolating, soft. Relying on the written word to explain, control, condense the vast and terrible world, full of so much wonder. 

But there are losses, portals of transformation that lack sufficient vocabulary to name. And that, in part, might excuse my absence. If writing is a mental exercise in processing lived sensations, some can only be felt by the body, the heart.

To attempt a summary, a re-drawing of the territory crossed, a rugged map of sorts, seems a dishonor. 

Yet.

How to invite you in? To invite myself outside, again? To open the sticky screen window, battered by storms and greet the dewy spring with a smile and a hello? 

Hello.

I’ve missed you. 

So many things are growing, blooming. It is Spring here. Inside and out. A theme since my Father’s passing, just after the winter solstice more than a year ago. How the cycle continues- transitions from the hushed whisper of death to the gentle, ringing bells of rebirth.

An unexpected portal entered so soon, knee deep in grief. Motherhood. Precious, miraculous joy. A love steady and strong enough to weather the quickening pace of a new story, still unfolding. 

Grace in the midst of sorrow. Overwhelming gratitude. Love.

Life. 

Words that deftly escape definition or paltry description.

Hello again. A kind stranger from the other side of the world sent me a message today after reading a poem I shared here, over six years ago. She asked how I was doing. An invitation. Back to the page, to shared stories and conversation (thank you, Lisa).

How are you? What has shifted and changed in the last year(s)? What portals have you entered with courage (or trepidation)? Who have you left behind? Who are you learning to embrace with all the fright of new love? What adventures lie ahead, behind? 

It’s okay if you don’t have the words yet. Me, either. Just know I’m still here and I hope you are, too. 

All my love, always. 

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