Waltzing through time: One two three, one two three…

12/31/23

Yesterday we drove our daughter and daughter-in-law to the airport in Kenai where they boarded a small plane to start them on their journey back to Atlanta. They were here for two weeks and during that time we shared space the way I always imagine people should share space. We chatted over morning coffee, took turns cooking and doing chores, schemed about new projects, went for walks, huddled around the wood stove, and sipped chai each evening from spices that had been simmering all day. We also gave each other space when it was needed, and did our own thing on occasion.

One day I had to make an early morning run to town for a couple of errands. I hadn’t planned on going to the beach but when I got to the stoplight at the intersection that leads there, I found myself turning. I’ve lived in Homer for going on 30 years now, but just in the last two years I’ve developed a kind of relationship with Bishop’s Beach. When I’m there, the mental chatter in my brain is paused. I don’t make lists or try to solve any problems. I don’t think about politics or the state of the world or the things I wish were different. When I’m there I am fully present with the rocks and the sand, the vast ocean, the driftwood, the wind, the salty air, the sunlight, the streams of water as they flow from the bluffs down into the sea, the birds, the ever-changing landscape that the perpetual tides create. There, I’m playful. I stack rocks. I leap over puddles. I talk to the crows. I experiment with photography. I sing.

My childhood was not especially conducive to playfulness and so I have a lot to learn in that regard. I was at the beach on my lunch break a few weeks ago and I got so caught up in taking photos of rocks that I had to run back to my car in order to make it back to work on time. I made it, but by the time I got there I was sweating and my hair was windblown. My face was flushed and I’d completely forgotten to eat. There at the library circulation desk where I was trying to smooth down my hair and catch my breath and figure out how I was going to make it without eating for the next few hours, I felt like a kid who’d been called away from playing outdoors to do homework or chores. At the beach I’d lost myself, with no agenda, and had experienced a kind of freedom that I suspect is what playing is all about.

On the particular morning last week that I had to run errands in town, the sky was just beginning to lighten in the east and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The trickle of daybreak and the waning gibbous moon made it possible for me to navigate the beach terrain without a headlamp, so I headed west into the moonlight, slowly at first to keep from twisting an ankle or slipping on the frozen rocks. Then I got to the sandy expanse where the walking was easy. I walked beside the water’s edge until the the tide began to roll back in. I took the tide’s turning as my cue to turn back as well, and headed back toward my car and the silhouetted mountains.

I drove back home with the car heater on full blast feeling like I had climbed a mountain, or glimpsed some piece of heaven. I’d been restored to myself and my place in the world again. I hadn’t known I’d needed that time at the beach, but I was glad I’d answered its call. Once I was home I sat with my daughter and her wife and we drank coffee and talked about herbs and music and books. We planned our next meal and figured out our day. Nothing was extraordinary about it, but at the same time everything about it was extraordinary.

Yesterday we watched the small commuter plane take off from Kenai and take them away. Then we drove back home. The night before, a thick fog from Cook Inlet had come inland and the moisture froze itself to every tree, plant, and street sign in its path. Sometimes, when everything is so beautiful there’s a tinge of pain that comes along with it. It’s true even when you haven’t just said goodbye to people you love. But the combination of the hoarfrost, the low angle light, and the sadness over parting ways brought me back to a familiar kind of longing.

I felt it for years when I was a child and I had to say goodbye to my mom every other weekend. During every car ride when she drove me and my sisters back to Grand Junction after spending a weekend with her in Craig, a kind of sadness fell over me that I began to associate with the scenery. I still can’t make the drive between the two towns without that sadness sneaking in.

We all have our different kinds of longing, but yesterday I identified my own unique brand of it. I feel it still when my mom’s summers in Alaska come to a close and she heads back to Colorado. I’ve felt it every time I’ve taken my son or daughter to an airport. I feel it whenever I’m in piñon pine country and have to leave. The longing dissipates with time, but for a while it takes up all the space in my heart.

Today the clouds have rolled in and the stretch of clear cold days that we had when our house was full has come to an end. The intense beauty of the blue sky days and big moon nights has mellowed and there’s a new year to ring in. Like we’ve done in recent years since our kids have been grown, we’ll have a fire in the wood stove, we’ll light a few candles, and with our old dogs curled up beside us we’ll debate over whether it’s worth it to stay up until midnight.

Chances are we won’t. That’s partly because we’ll be tired and partly because we’ve got tomorrow to look forward to. The forecast looks good for the morning, and our plan is to bundle up and greet the day outside with coffee and a fire. It’ll be quiet and calm and maybe by then this longing I feel will have dissipated back into the contentment that’s my more normal state of being these days.

It’s taken some work to get here, to this place of contentment. And it will take some work to stay here too, and so here are my hopes as I move forward: to take life as it comes, to want less, to live in constant gratitude, to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, to learn to love more and love better, to allow space for playfulness and freedom, to listen to my body and my soul’s longings, to strive less and let things unfold as they’re meant to, to heal the parts of myself that still need healing and to take part in a greater kind of healing beyond myself, to know when to take action and when to be still, to mourn and recover as many times as life requires, to rest, to forgive, to cultivate joy, and to use discernment when making choices. Ultimately, my hope is for peace – for you, for me, for all the animals, both wild and domestic, for the planet that sustains us, for everyone. Everywhere. No exceptions.

May we remember that our capacity to love is as infinite as time and as vast as the universe, and that’s what we’re here to do. My heartfelt best wishes to you all for the new year.