one

A week from today I'll be thirty-two minutes away from my last Friday workday in Symphony Hall.

It's been coming in in waves... bits and pieces of the massive realization of the step I'm readying to take out in a big blue and green unknown. The messages from beyond are washed up on the shore I've called home and comfort, known daily routines and cups of steaming coffee; the small words and messages from beyond appeared by my toes and some days I've been too busy walking back and forth along the bank holding myself together to notice them. Other days it was all I could to take one step, I was so preoccupied in scanning the sand for traces of a vessel of meaning from the other places, for they appear as shells, rocks, creatures, broken edges of massive sand dollars. I treasure each discovery, I shriek aloud in wonder and delight at the mystery that brought us together. I hold each tiny shell in my cupped palm and study its inner-workings; if only I were an ant, and could make my home in one such beautifully constructed immaculate edifice.


***

A few weeks ago I spent a few days with my oldest friends on beaches never before visited by my ten small toes. Water makes me feel at home, fifteen years old, growing up by a small lake for the school year, and a larger lake for my summer. I was so very lucky -- we all were --- these dear, old friends of mine, the ones who were my friend when I wasn't pretty and when I couldn't navigate social scenes. They all had boyfriends at summer camp except me. My head and heart were in the trees and the clouds, waking up early to read my Bible, and later, an e.e. cummings volume of poetry that would become ragged with the cover torn off from a smothering of love and attention. The volume accompanied me to the Alps where I had my first French romance; to Haiti where my heart was broken for my beautiful, joyful Haitian friends dealing with poverty, harsh conditions, and later, the aftermath of a devastating earthquake; and the simple words of the poet came with me to both my first and second apartments. They comforted me the first year decorating a Christmas tree alone late one night, my roommate asleep already, but I was too sad to sleep. The white lights and green branches waved and winked at me, knowing things I would patiently wait to learn.

***

Packing up my books a few nights ago, in the place I have called home for two years now, I hesitated when I reached the purple torn-off cover of the selected poetry by my favorite whimsically serious writer. It's not that I don't need the words anymore -- i do -- it's that, instead of bringing volumes of already-written poetry on my journey, I've decided to bring blank journals to fill, with my own words.

There are a lot of them, I think; I've shared some of them here in this public space, but there are so many more that I am struggling with, allowing to pool in the elixir of memory and time, stirred up with song, dance, and early mornings. They shiver and shimmer along the bridge of my nose and back, sinking deeper into lungs and heart. They're heavy; they demand attention. They're part of the reason I'm doing everything that I'm doing. There's a new sense of peace that follows when I've been able to write something that has been spinning around for days and weeks, slowly forming into silvery stream and a final note of punctuation.

While I'm away , I will write, pray, meditate, and sing. I'll cook for the friends I stay with, and show them my little collection of messages from the deep blue. It's already helped so much to allow others in to my story and thoughts.

I thank you all, dearly. It hurts to go away, but here is what a certain Cambridge native by the initials "e.e." would say, and what I do very much so believe :

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

                                                      i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

My heart is very full right now. It's keeping me going -- strengthening each word and straightening each footfall.