One Balanced Life

I have been here before. Sometimes I am able to slide into the slowness and other times the transition takes a while. I fight against the pace of life here. I push, wrestle, find myself restless, and searching for something to do. So I learn to sit with the edginess and eventually I settle into a rhythm. There is nothing to do here but slow down. And I am not exaggerating at all. It is like being in another country. There is no landline, no cell phone, no computer, no friend to meet for coffee…just the valley, and the mountains. I’ve often thought on this trip how did I live here for a month with a 1 and 3 year old? But I realize the difference between two years ago and now: I am more “connected” to the world at large than I was then. And I also realize that is a choice. Maybe one I made unconsciously. But that is the gift of being here…a reset. Or as one reader remarked -  perhaps an opening (aperature) - to look at life differently. To slow down and connect in ways - that really matter.

I have been here before. Getting comfortable with the unknown. I remember when I first started coming here I would run only on the paved roads, lock the doors at night, and scramble for connection with the outside world. Now I hit the roads not traveled, unapologetically leave the doors unlocked, and although I do miss connection I know I really need the disconnect this time.

I have been here before…seven years ago this very month I was full of hope for the child I was carrying and for my mother-in-law sick with cancer.  Hope that she would recover and meet her first grandchild. Within a month I would be back out here again visiting Children’s Hospital in Boston for tests with the baby and going to chemo with her. And within another month both would leave this world within hours of each other. It was a very dark time. The darkest I have ever experienced. But there was light too. The moments of peace when I felt and knew that they were together.

As I look back over the years I see the pattern of light and dark, joy and pain. I have been here before.

And I will be back again…over and over. That is the rhythm of life.