A year later...

Seems important that I should write something here. Just by chance I noticed that my last entry was a year ago today. Oh what a year it has been. Everything that I had hoped it would be as well as much of what I feared it might.

The love, the support, the amazing feeling of being home. The missing, the yearning, the displaced feeling of being a woman who craves tradition and the love of my people finding myself rewriting what all that means. All of these things coexist with each other in a way that is nearly indescribable. At the very least I would have to have a better handle on it all to begin describing it.

But...we are thriving. My kids are growing and learning and are so surrounded by love and family that I honestly give thanks every day for what they have. The ways that their lives have grown, the new connection they have to the seasons and life outside of the concrete jungle of Haight Street. I am rekindling old friendships while slowly forging new ones.

Being home in New England has brought me a new level of calm even in the midst of very real struggles. I had become so accustomed to life in the city that I was unaware that there was a level of vigilance that I was constantly maintaining. It wasn't until I came home to our small town, quiet life and the familiarity of daily rhythms here, that I was slowly able to recognize how much I had missed it all. It is a really difficult thing for me to articulate but it is almost as though I had dulled my love of this place out of sheer necessity. To make peace with my choice to live in California for the rest of my days. So much so that even now, a year later, I can be startled by the realization that my entire body is responding to the smell of wet leaves or the sound of the newly formed ice singing when you skip a rock across it. It is much like embracing that friend you haven't seen in years yet you realize the moment your hands touch and your eyes meet, that no matter how much time has passed your connection and love remains. For lack of a better word it is magical.

I try to hang on to these moments when I am feeling melancholy and wistful for my friends. For that is what I miss, not my lovely apartment of 20 years that so many people considered their home away from home, or the vibrancy and buzz of city life. It is my people. Those who watched me grow and helped me sort out who I was and who I hoped to become. The ones that supported me through my days bringing me laughter and clarity while we celebrated and grieved together. Those who watched my children come into this world and pledged with their words and actions to love them forever.

So it is December 22, 2011. Tomorrow is my birthday and soon after it will be Christmas. I have so much to be thankful for and so much to allow myself to feel sad about. Life remains beautiful and complicated.

With that I welcome 2012. With all it's ups and downs, surprises and curve balls. It promises to be quite a year.