Stars on the Breeze

Writing has been strange for me lately, like something meant for other people, or something too far away to be enjoyed.  But I have just returned from a walk, and whatever was stuck became loose again.   

Finally.  Finally I remembered it was first to understand the world, little old me and my story with God.  Second of all, everything else.

I spent an hour in my neighborhood, thinking and then not thinking about this crazy world and what it feels like to be mixed up in it.  I walked and breathed and ambled in peace.

Away from all the people I knew, anonymity was a welcome relief.  I love to be known, but I love to be a stranger too.  This is the appeal of travel, because dwelling amidst other strangers gives your mind room for thought.  

But then I thought about the shape of of my life, and what has fashioned it to be what it is.  Right now in this moment on this day.  I am healthy.  I am grateful.  I have people I love and many things which fill my days. (Many.)  I am constantly working and reworking and then resting and resting again in the idea of balance this year.  I've regained again the inner introvert who did not have much of a fighting chance with the schedule I used to live.  I have slowed down, but not settled down.  I think there is a difference.  




Of course on a walk you notice things  You notice other peoples' houses and goings on in the neighborhood.  But also, past the people, the production and progress, I noticed the pines.  Today the breeze whooshing through them sent me back to childhood.  Back, back, back to family vacations where that sound enveloped the morning and the nights when we were together in the wilderness.  

My family camped a lot when I was a little girl, and these are the best and boldest memories of my childhood.  I missed my family suddenly and fiercely when I heard that sound, and while it was a peaceful walk in all the best possible ways in the spring, I also felt wistful for older, breezier times.  

Spring is a favorite time, mostly because I wake up better and dream better again.  I read books I've forgotten I love, and somehow for me it's easier to look up at the sky.  I have decided that to really be myself, grounded and sane amidst the crazy this spring, I will be a diligent, dreamy star gazer once more.  

Sometimes in high school my brother and sister and I would sit outside on the front porch and watch stars late into the night.  Sometimes we'd lay on the deck and sleep on the flat, hard wooden slats all night, just for the chance to see shooting stars.  
The summer my sister lived with me in Stillwater, we'd drive to the country and lay on the car and drink in the magnitude and the peace of the night.   
Sometimes my dad and I would drive out to the country, to this one perfect place with a silent, fortress of a hill, just so we could see a meteor shower in all of its glory against a dark, dark sky.  

And whenever we were camping, there was the necessary walk to the bathroom for teeth brushing under the pitch black sky.....no other sound but crunching gravel, holding hands and our one small flashlight between us.....in those places were always the best and most brilliant stars.  

Every year in the spring I get less sleep because I'm too fascinated by the morning and the night to miss out on either.  I'm up with the birds and the lamps are lit late into the night.  Still though, ever this - misty mornings with coffee and silence and sitting outside on the porch is the best first thing of all.  

Sleep, schmeep!  Spring is coming, and I am ready to greet it.