Tomorrow the boys will go back to school. For the last weeks they have been home, which is to say they have either been loving on each other, hating each other, or glued to my side. We have had wonderful distractions like Christmas and New Year's festivities to offset the monotony, but even those celebrations were of a quiet kind, as we stayed home with just our little family. And to add to the boredom vibe in full effect around here, a countable number of these days have been bitter cold and snowed in. I believe it is called cabin fever, and we've all caught it. We are too rested. It is possible. I never would've thought so.
This morning I made coffee, cinnamon rolls and chicken apple sausages. I am celebrating the last day of winter break, eager to send them off tomorrow. Eager to have hours of solitude in my back pocket again. I am ready for time to work. To lay down words that have been spinning in my head for weeks. Thoughts and insight and dreams for this new year - both in my writing and my photography. I want to tread lightly with my feet planted firmly and my heart open to aligning all aspects of my life this year. In reflection, this past year was full of release and new beginnings. It was the year of both of my boys being out of the house for full day school. The time to myself I had counted on to come again after many moons came. Uninterrupted time to create. Seven hours a day, five days a week, to be available. Not one hour lost to divine gratitude. I got back on my mat, but more importantly, I found a small group of community that made me weep the first time in their presence; I didn't know I needed them until I was there, and then it was so clearly obvious. The release of friendships that had grown apart and a reorganizing of my priorities and boundaries. The letting go of faces on Facebook - as I was told, "In this day, it is a bold statement to "unfriend" someone on Facebook." And taking my world to a smaller place didn't feel wonderful, but it did feel essential. It was a year of shedding my old skin. Of getting to know myself again on the cusp of becoming a middle-age woman; who is also the mother of two children; who has already raised them to school age. (Fist pump.)Yesterday I captioned these words with a photo I took and posted on Instagram: I've come to rest in the beauty of life, moving along quickly, us somewhere near the center.
When I keyed those words out, I saw exactly where I am now. And I feel good about staying somewhere close to these words this year; praying to continue finding peace and beauty in the hurry and the mess and the divine. I want to tread lightly with my feet planted firmly and my heart open to aligning all aspects of my life this year.
For today, though, all I am saying is bless the cabin. Get out of the cabin. Stay near the center.
