Setting out to deepen my kinship roots, I circle back to those who shaped me first. I bow to my two greatest teachers. My mother. My brother. Today, loving them gave me wings. Seeing them through eyes of awareness itself, I cracked open. To love what is. My bones sang as i allowed them to just be. No need to fix. Just love. Just presence. Just this. Each moment, a portal to awaken, if we choose.
Driving with Brian through green trees and corn fields, windows wide open, wind blowing, music blaring, singing out loud. Waves of grief and praise, flowing through our lips as we released the pain and forgave our father, shedding layers of what could have been, should have been, accepting what was. Remembering how he used to drive fast over green hills in his gold TransAm to give us butterflies in our bellies, windows open, Neil Diamond blaring from a cassette tape. Delighting in stories of our grandmother Sophie, that day she leaned her head out of the car, wind blowing through her hair, the day she retired, exclaiming, “My, the sky is so BIG today.” Eating lunch under a tree, in the rain. Taking photos and making street art in alleyways with spray paint. Crying together for the marsh girl in Where the Crawdads Sing. Seeing his new home in the trees, with his chipmunk friends and paying homage to his storage unit, set up like an altar of memory.
Wading through boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff with my mom. Elvis. Red hats. Beanie babies. Pouring through old black and white photographs of our ancestors. Watching Wheel of Fortune and eating pizza on the couch. Sitting on my porch tonight, watching fireflies, I think back over the day and I count each moment as holy.
