Hello, my Darlings!
I've missed you. How are you? I've been thinking about you all because I'm reading Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and I feel released, creatively. I'd been trying to add some sort of learning I've gleaned into every blog and I've decided to set myself free. I want to just experience and write and if there's a lesson in it, FANTASTIC! And if there isn't, who cares? Life can be learning or experience(which we all know is learning) and I don't feel obligated to beat you over the head with it.
I had also been beating myself up about not editing more, but I am in the throes of being mom and wife and boss and human and writer and I don't have time. There will come a time when I do, but now is not that time. If I miss a word or mix a metaphor, I apologize, but I won't feel guilty. Today, I am Popeye: "I yam what I yam."
I have returned home tonight from a trip to the Metro DC area, where I grew up and where I immediately feel at home. I flew into BWI(Maryland, my Maryland) and was picked up by my BFF and we drove down the parkway, surrounded by my favorite Eastern Deciduous trees--dressed all shades of orange and yellow and some still green--and past my favorite city. I got to see the Capitol, all gussied up in scaffolding, and the Smithsonian buildings and some new offices and terrible 295 traffic and we crossed into beautiful Northern Virginia, my home of 15 years. BFF lives in the most charming neighborhood, in the most charming house, with an ivy-covered slope and beautiful brick steps up to the front door. Her house is INVITING and WARM and FUN because she has flawless taste and because she gets me. You know how you feel at home in some places and you feel at home with some people? I'm talking total package here, friends. She was prepared with things I didn't know I loved, like coloring books and bible journaling and other things I do know I love, like gin and tonics and homemade soap and shopping at Tyson's Corner.
We went junkin' and shopping and ate burgers and sweet potato fries and drank LOTS of coffee and just reveled in the normalness of our relationship, even though we only get to hang out every other year, on average. Who else could I watch the "Unauthorized 90210" with or the Tori Spelling Lie Detector interview, with only a hint of irony(although if you ask me next week, I'll deny it)than my BFF? It was a necessity to see her because I think we both need to be grounded in the way that we ground each other. It's not necessary to explain ourselves, because we know. She knows I'm going to touch EVERYTHING and say "Isn't this fun?" and I know she's going to be drawn to sheep and bleached out colors and clean architectural details and we both know it could all go south if we indulge the (much smaller now that we're more mature)chips on our shoulders;). We are aware of our limitations and it's great. The lesson of being 43 is that you can let your friends be who they are as long as they are doing the same for you.
And then I left, wishing I could stay one more day, but knowing it was the perfect way to leave. And I arrived home to my overscheduled and unpredictable life. To have the pilot slam the brakes on as we taxied out of Dulles "because someone was landing where we were supposed to take off" and the gate wasn't ready in ATL and I took the wrong door out of the airport and my parking ticket wouldn't read at the kiosk. I got home to pick L up from youth at church and miraculously arrived for much-needed evening prayer and sweet church friends and new church friends and finally home to my adorable family, including the new Pepper dog who actually missed me and kissed me like I was important to her. And I'm back home again, but this time with the people who love me for different reasons(I'm hot, or I once was) or I'm their mom and I don't have to cover up my arm fat or my belly sticking out and who love me because I am theirs and they are mine.
So I leave you tonight, with not so much a lesson, but a thought: home is anywhere you feel loved and supported and comfortable and family is anyone who loves you and supports you and makes you feel comfortable. You are my family and I hope I'm yours.
Love,
Corks
I am theirs and they are mine. Perfect.
ReplyDeleteThanks, friend!
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