Begin again

Every time you think you know something, it changes. Something shifts. 

I don’t know what this is. I thought I did. A discovery of a home. A Lost place. Found in Morocco. But I’m not sure it was ever about the place. I think the place was the trigger. The space that provided the catalyst to reconnect with

Myself. And maybe that’s what I’ve been searching for my whole life. My home. I’ve looked in others. Asked for guidance and permission. Validation. Fit into their ideals and their boxes. And this hiraeth. This longing for a home that may never have existed… what if it has been a longing for me. For myself. For all of me. A place. That may never have existed. But I know is true. I know exists. Even if I can’t touch it or place it on a map. A deep longing for all of me. To come home to myself. Maybe it’s been a longing for my own heart.

So here this blog thing morphs again. And I don’t know what I’m doing (which I know I’m supposed to stop saying) because I do know. I just don’t quite have the words to put to it. Or more accurately, I don’t have the words to put to it that fit nicely into the language of society. Of what’s par for the course, one foot in front of the next we’re trained to want and do. And I truly don’t know the next step. Just that I’m following my intuition like it’s a map from the gods. Because I think it might be. The only way to decipher it is surrender and listen. Surrender and follow. Surrender and trust.

I met a woman today. She was amazing. And we needed to meet. And it made me realize I feel like I’m floundering and floating. Free falling with God, as Jacque keeps saying. And I’m half terrified- half trusting. But I still keep one foot in front of the other even if I can’t see the path. Because I’ve heard the only way we can see the path clearly in front of us is if we’re on someone else’s path. So here I am with machete in hand bushwhacking my way through. And today I meet this woman. And she was like a signpost. She needed my story today. It helped her see light in her own life. And through that I felt so seen. For real. Not as this brave adventurer that people tend to label me as, which doesn’t feel to me to be the truth of it. But she saw me as someone making a very clear, if wandering, choice to try something else. Because you reached a point where everything you’ve lived no longer exists. Not because you want an adventure. But because everything you have known up to this point has burned to the ground. And instead of rebuilding, reconstructing the shape of same thing…you thought maybe there is another way…another path.

To be seen by her and have her recognize our lives as similar and that she could reshape things in a new way too, gave me reassurance in myself. Recognition. To see the light in her eyes….like of course we could do it differently. That when everything burns down, maybe it’s because something entirely new is ready to be born. That there is light in a dark place if you’re brave enough to believe you can follow it. I need to figure out how to sit with everyone telling me how brave I am. I don’t think it’s bravery…even though I just said it’s brave to follow the light. I think it’s more true that…it’s that there is no other choice but to try to create a new path.

And so, perhaps this will be a collection of my adventures, the paths, the days, the wins and the redirections. The discoveries. Me saying, wow! Look at that!

stepping off the path

So, while I’ve thought this blog and this homecoming is about a return to Morocco…a place that grabbed my soul and hasn’t loosened its grip since I met her, I think the bigger thing happening is a homecoming to myself. I have no idea what I’m doing or what will happen. I put everything I own into storage, arrived with two suitcases and my typewriter, which for the record is absolutely one suitcase too many. Even if you think you’re going to live somewhere. I think none of this makes sense to most people in my life, but this decision to step off the path, is the truest decision I’ve ever felt. And who knows. It could be a disaster. But it could also be amazing. I just know if I didn’t try, if I didn’t get on the plane with no plan but to listen, it would be THE thing on my deathbed that would fill me with remorse and regret.

This past year was the most heart wrenching and difficult of my life. So much of what I had built, fell away. So much of what I knew, shifted. I think it was all built on a foundation that wasn’t quite mine. A foundation that was normal and what it “should” be. But not what I am. Not what I could be if I followed my heart instead of the rules. The guidelines. The well wishes. I’m a rule follower. It’s served me well in my life. If you look on the surface, I’m successful in all the ways you’re supposed to be, and yet I’ve never all the way felt like I’m living my own life. I’ve felt like I’ve been playing a part, living a story, but I’ve never embodied it, I’ve never participated in it down to my bones because it’s never really felt mine.

And so, now that I’ve started already…. because sometimes you simply must start things that scare you…like writing a blog….it can become what it will be…. a developing love story with my own heart, a homecoming to my own soul and an adventure along the way…with some reflections on the year that broke me. A time I don’t wish to ever repeat, but one I’m grateful for because without it, I wouldn’t have stepped off the path.