A fat letter addressed to me came in the mail and I've been carrying it around ever since, reading and re-reading, visualizing my soul-sister, Kerry, sitting in her tent in the Canadian wilderness, mosquitos swarming on the other side of the cloth while she scratched on paper her feelings of being away from her husband and child and the home she loves and writing because really she needed someone to talk to and I'm so happy she decided to talk to me.
in a handwritten letter.
It will be good for me to get away, she had thought.
But she was miserable. It was too soon to be away from Quinn, her almost two year old toddler.
Sure, the canoeing was spectacular.
But what she longed for was her daughter's little paws holding her face while saying
you. and me, mommy.
In her letter she reminded me of my own get-away fest two years ago, my meditation-writing retreat in the middle of Vermont, locked up with a bunch of noisy Buddhists trying to calm my mind while staring at a spot six feet in front of me, counting my breaths, all while my mind was swinging like a trapeze artist from thought to thought. Three times a day we sat and then there was the writing and the sharing of the writing in the evening. Then I would return to my cell-like room where I'd watch The Daily Show on my laptop and skype with Michael and Claire, unable to sleep. The sound of the blowing conch shell woke me every morning at five am which eventually drove me to the Barnet General Store for a jumbo Snickers bar...walking walking walking in the brilliant October air, sucking in air like a fish out of water.
I had thought it would be good for me to get away.
The best part of the trip was the end when I left the retreat center and drove east on Route 2 to Waitsfield where I got to hold six week old Quinn on my chest, a healing orb of baby, calming my overly-meditated, sleep-deprived self.
I'm not sure what I'm getting at here.
Home is where the heart is?
Or that writing a letter is a greater gift than you know so give it a whirl. Pick a person, get your pen and tell them about your morning, your memories, your fears. It is the great connector when we share ourselves. Write a letter, a postcard, a post-it note.
Writing and reading help me make sense of
this life/ my life/ our life.
I'm thinking too about the it would be good for me to get away syndrome, how I've felt that urge for years except as a young girl when I loved so much to be in the fold with my parents and my brothers, in our home with the dog and cat.
Just like Quinn's little paws holding my face saying,
you. and me.
and how I don't need to get away at all but could bloom where I am, with my own family and house and dog and cat (and turtle) and know this is where I belong, that Paris will have to wait, for now anyway.
you. and me.
has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
namaste.
