Sun and sheer clouds, the spring blue tempered to a wash by white, the trees still and the birds making a joyful noise. The leaves are leafier, getting that look they will keep all summer, so many shades of green you could never reproduce them all. The bicyclers are out, a pack just rounded the corner, all bright colors, orange and pink and green and yellow, and helmets of shocking colors, and the inevitable stragglers, talking, not so much interested in speed as company. It's the last day of spring break, school tomorrow for me and all the students. Kemah has been crowded with traffic and fun seekers all week. The roads as mobbed as the rollercoaster, or all those fancy restaurants. The boats going in and out, by the hundreds, a handful at a time. When you cross the bridge you can see so many little white boats out on the bay, as if someone stood at the apex of the bridge and threw out hands full of torn paper, and the wind scattered it over the gray-blue water, lit in patches of green by bright sun. Triangular sails swollen by wind for sheer exhilaration of speed and the sound of rushing water!
Sunday, and the day for the blessing. Today Michael is going to Oklahoma, not just for vacation but to live there for a time, maybe for good, and maybe it will be. He's leaving later to day with Mendi who came for his birthday and will go back today as well. They will travel packed up with worldly goods and memories, looking forward to a new adventure with excitement, and here things will be different, but that is what happens, things change. You cannot escape it, you just have to accept it. The only thing you can do is choose how you will react to those changes. Today I am glad for Michael and for Mendi, they seem to have found warmth and affection and perhaps love, they surely have found a lot to talk about, every night on the phone, almost all night, in the quiet they discovered each other. Now they will go off and discover more about each other, and what else could that be but an adventure. Matthew is there, and Kaci and Shawn, it's not like they are going off to some place where they will not have any connections. Michael will have family and friends and new work, what that will be we don't know but . . . remember, adventure! And we will be here still loving him and wishing him happiness and all good things that can come with finding someone to share your life.
Here is a good poem for starting the adventure of the rest of your life.
A Morning Offering
I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.
All that is eternal in me
Welcome the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.
I place on the altar of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Wave of desire I am shore to
And all beauty drawn to the eye.
May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.
John O'Donohue
Being invited to new frontiers, breaking the shell of yesterday, the risk of being disturbed and changed. Linda had in her office had something that said to have the change you desire, you have to give up the way things are. So today Michael is having that courage to go and live the life he would love, perhaps to do what he came here for, to go to that new frontier and explore all that is out there. We will surely miss him, miss having him in the intimate way of day to day life, but there will be connections, and words will be part of those, and love, and who would tell anyone you love not to go, not to discover what brings them joy, what will challenge them, and the world the place it can be for them. Today I have my own new frontiers, and I will not waste my heart on fear or such sadness that involves only how I see things, and I see his dream and want him to have that life he would love.
Here's to new frontiers! To love and all that means, all the changes, the mind coming alive to this day, to this invisible geography we all are traveling through!
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