Settling Here

I have been penning stories in my head. I have been scheming up paintings and drawings within my heart. Unceasingly, it seems.

Yet there has been a disconnect between the inner yearnings and the outer actions, and it is as if each opportunity passively let go adds more strength to the barrier. I am an artist. An aspiring creator. For months now, there has been little reflection of this in my life.

Midway through last month, in a fit of desperation, I found a scrap of paper in my purse and scribbled down the articulations trying to work themselves out in my mind. I was on the bus on the way to work, and it was a particularly important day in the calendar year of 2010. Forgive the melancholy. This was my honest heart on that day...

My favorite bus driver says, "Happy Saturday," with a generous smile, knowing today ends my work week. My automatic response is an enthusiastic "yes!" But as my smile fades and I find my seat, I'm reminded this day hasn't felt happy yet.

I woke up remembering that I didn't get this day -- September 18th -- last year. It passed me by as my jet flew a host of travelers across the Pacific to Auckland, New Zealand. And now my heart is all tangled. My throat hurts, and my shoulders feel heavy.

I want to want to be right where I'm at.

The window reveals grey sky over grey water cradling forested islands. A rain-drenched world from the long, wet night. I love these smells, these colors, these sensations. But I miss the thrill of being in a land where accents catch my ear, where currency is colorful, where ferns and tropics mix in abundance.

I miss it. And I want to let it go.

I am earnest in wanting to engage in this local life I'm living. I am here after all, and I remind myself that it is very much on purpose. I did not accidentally buy a plane ticket up to Seattle from L.A. after landing back in the States. I did not mistakenly wind up with all my suitcases of belongings in the closet of my mother's new home. And I did not just trivially sign a yearlong lease on a house.

As I get ready to publish this post, I look back over the past week and realize how little I have wished myself anywhere but right where I am at. I like these pavements my feet now find familiar. I like getting to run beneath golden trees and disrupt fallen pink, red, and orange-hued leaves. I have a new workplace, where my days and energy are consumed by helping others to cake, coffee, and a good glass of porto. I like these things.

My heart has spread wide across this world, and sometimes that makes it feel very thin. Tonight, however, I experience the luxurious fullness of all these memories sewn across continents. I'll settle here.





[Top: Breakfast of poached egg & Marmite on toast / Bottom: Cemetery on Lopez Island, WA]