a letter to the new owner

Sniff, sniff

This is the part

IF I WANTED A BOAT
I would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn't know starboard from port
and wouldn't learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn't keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn't steer.  --Mary Oliver 

Yesterday we packed, exhausting as it was. We filled the uhaul and our car and headed to the mountains were we will now live. Ellie and I drove the car. She spilled something on her shirt and I had no idea where her clothes were. So she just took off her shirt. I watched her from the rear view mirror, my little child who, without a shirt, looked younger and more baby like then I had seen in some time. Suddenly I was overcome with the bigger picture. Me, mother. Her, child, being led by the hand by her parents. Parents, the ones that are supposed to be wise, the ones that are supposed to have the answers.

We are in the new place now. There are boxes everywhere. But today I am overcome with the enormity of it all. I'm overcome with the loneliness of new surroundings. We moved here to be closer to the mountains, because we both agree, (myself and Mike), that they move us on some level that can not necessarily be articulated with words. But today the gorgeous, majestic mountains outside of my door make me feel small. Scared. Questioning why exactly we are doing this. What chord in our reasonings rang so loud that it said "child, you must go to the mountains.".

This is the part where you have to trust the process. This is the part where your faith gets rocked. This is the part where you simply have to put one foot in front of the other and do what's best for the child.

I'm having a very hard day. I miss my friends. I miss the very bare home that we will, come Friday, relinquish ownership of. I miss the life that I lived there. I miss it all. I miss it so acutely that I don't possibly know how this can get better.

And yet it will. I know that it will.

This is part where you have to trust the process.

Life. There are always multiple ways to get to where you are going.

Wherever you go, there you are

I'm going to miss it here. I know this, deep in my heart, even though we are going through the motions of house selling and moving. This house was never big enough, not once the child came. Still, it holds so much of the dearness in my life. We nestled in here perfectly, built community, built a family. Every day it becomes more and more sparse as we transfer our belongings from one home to another. Every day the echo of an empty home becomes more and more apparent, like the soon to be echoes of a life we once lived.

They say life is supposed to be messy, and you're supposed to go out there and get dirty. Moving to the mountains is something I've always wanted to do. Who wouldn't want to live in the place that enchants you the most? Still, are we doing the right thing? Will the stark contrast of urban living and country homesteading be too much for us? I'm scared, yes. Or maybe I'm simply grieving. Or maybe I'm just being human about everything and owning the one skill that I've never been able to master, the skill of making a true, unwavering decision.

I want to live in the mountains because they make my heart feel as though it is home. But in our call to move onward there is another (rather large) pull to move to California. In California life is beautiful, not in a majestic, mountain sense (although that does exist there), but in a salty, ancient, sun bathed sense. And like all things home, my mother and brother live there. I may be a fully grown woman, but I still want to share the beautiful things that life offers with my mother, with the family of my youth, just as my daughter wants to share the beautiful things she finds with me.

We are moving to the mountains because of a housing opportunity. An opportunity to live a life that we can see ourselves living. I wish the California factor wasn't there, because it makes living with a question mark, as though we are trying it on for size, ready to turn it in if the fit isn't quite right. It gives us an out, but it also gives us more family.

I don't know where life will lead us. But I like that the wheels are in motion. I'm scared and sad and elated and excited. I have no idea if the decisions we are making are the right ones. We are jumping off of the proverbial cliff. We are reminding one another that sometimes we need to close our eyes and just say "wheeeee!!!!!!!!!".

Brave face

Dear life,
It's not always easy is it?
We greet and part, kiss on the cheek,
hand in hand slowly slipping away.
We rise when we must
sometimes wondering how we could possibly handle more.
I've seen so many families
locked in the impossible stare of Grief.
Grief, a bold faced beast.

I've never seen a more beautiful organism
than that of family.
Never a more delicate flower
a more peaceful day
a more turbulent storm.
All we have is each other
until we no longer have that.

Dear heart,
I know you are breaking.
I know you are watching your father die.
Letting go of your mother
and Lord help me
saying goodbye to your daughter.
I can't help but wonder
how can our hearts handle so much?

I am but a small voice, one nurse,
doing my best when my best is no where near good enough.
I can't make people stay.
Sometimes, I can't even make the pain go away.
My heart breaks too.
I have to relive my own losses,
grieve for the losses that I will one day endure.
I see it all in you.
I tell you that you are strong.
And you are because you have no other choice.

I will help you through this, because it is what I have chosen to do,
because I've always known on a grand scale
that our lives are meant to go away.
But sometimes grand scales are hard to see
in ordinary moments.
Even though we know that we must,
letting go is the hardest thing we'll ever do.

It's only in facing the great beast of Grief
that I've ever understood
what "brave face" means.
I will keep wearing mine,
and I will gently remove it where thankfully,
I no longer need to be brave.