When a woman crosses a threshold...

...she knows that something inside her has shifted, if only slightly. She knows she is on a different trajectory. ~Sue Monk Kidd

And when I left Charles Street felt gritty just like Baltimore County always does to me but the city limits were still encircling me it's amazing all the times it just takes trees to feel like home. And Kirsten is right there are no students in her dorm and Notre Dame is like a castle with the mystery light and funny breathing things holding life that castles, or old, that fairytales make you so much more aware of in a way that uses no words. Sean and I kept trying to make the diner thing happen but everytime I put my heart eyes on they just weren't down there in Fells. So he called back right when I'd made the decision to hike at Patapsco instead and had turned on Northern Ave, it worked out cuz he was only then just leaving his home...

Hiking never happened, rather I had a Beautiful Friday in Old Ellicot and I haven't done that, a real true spontaneous date with me fired by heart and only what the heart can see--in months and months and months. Really, since the time that I lived on Wash Ave and was reading the Artist's Way and had just met Amy and Shaman Bob and believed, believed believed and knew nothing more than this: Belief. And at that time in my life Beautiful Fridays happened every Friday, and I was single, then, too.

And later I spent the whole afternoon with Baby Maren laying across my chest, or sat just chillin with her my arm around her and her wizening eyes taking it all in. When I left Man's house I put baby powder in my hair cuz it was dirty and I forgot til Sean and Kir reminded the night before that that's the old trick to make it look clean. I had my ol summer BoHo dress on and it was good and right cuz Indian Summer was in the hills and trees. I bought mums for Mandy and little gourds for me and LDbubb from a Harvest stand in old EC. And when I left Man's and little Maren and baby Derreck too I smelled like baby powder from my hair, but also like that warm milk and tender baby smell and powder, which was from them. And the writing and inking that all that morning had opened me so wide and was still on especially after the antiquing and vintage stores all morning long. That trick of Fall and that dark- bottom glow: the everything passes ache that is true. And even after the Boat Show traffic it still fired and opened and led led led me, all the way til Easton that gentle wide open glow. Illustrious light that is sharp sometimes but edged last night and softened I am guessing by the Fall, which Is the glow. I smiled a lot and when I got there I was late and Susan and Jeff were already getting to know Laura, too. Which makes me so happy when people I love get the chance to love one another, too.

Po'Girl rocked I realized how much I love that harmony sound and when she started clogging it was like I had a body memory of sitting on the ground: and then it got me that quiet gentle o, mm-hmmm cuz I remember but only in my body the sense of being in diapers and bandannas and the cloggers on the stage at Pappaws shows vibrating the ground.

During the intermission Susan asked when was the last time I lived somewhere without a roommate? And I said immediately January 03 til January 04 I had this studio with one room off the side the room was my writing room and sacred space it had slanted ceilings like this so you couldn't barely stand and I angled my arm like one half of an X. And, I said, it was the only time that stands out as when I got to be Wild Me, I completed my first real writing project then tho I didn't know that's what it was at the time. But then that was also right when Brandon and I first fell in love and he lived with me practically, too, he stayed every night for sure and that was until January when he truly moved in for good. So the answer, is never, really, and she was smiling and nodding her head. And it was yet again one of those times throughout the night and all day, too, where I felt so brimmed over with hope and love that my heart gave a little burst.

And then during Girlyman who I'd never heard before right after this girl sang somewhere different now which is when the tears came and flowed out and out of my heart and I had to breathe deep to keep from a sob, the words came to me, a twist on a funny postcard RJ sent us once: I dont know where I'm going, but I do know where I Am. Which is different from the past months and the real verse on the postcard I dont know where I'm going but I know I'm on my way. And that's just it, that song was all those lonely nights and my broken and bleeding, but still ravenously, or staggeringly, or just quietly, quietly beating heart with all the doubts and not knowing what or how or who or when.

And I am past that now, I realized. I am past that, and moving out now, and on and beyond, again...