Leaving

You know it's legit when you gotta call mom.

Except that's not true I didn't call her, she called me, because it was Monday and that's what she does--on her drive from Ocean Pines to the county, to Anne Arundel where I'm from and where she stays every Monday night at a friend's house because she works at Maryland General, top of Howard Street in the city, every Tuesday in the operating room. She called and I was finishing up talking to Brenda at work and without thinking about it before I was even out of the cafeteria at the College where Brenda and I were, I called mom back.

Another important lesson you are learning is not to be afraid to start over. This is the chart of new beginnings...which there will be alot of....Your connection to God or the Source is extremely important and that is why you will continually need to be alone, make clear your intents and listen to your own inner council. Forced new beginnings probably seem to occur without rhyme or reason...However, when you learn to do what you want, what your passion is, finding those projects that charge your battery, as it were, you will find you will be instinctively attracted to those situations that will not let you down. Self trust is the most important lesson for you to learn.

I sat on a bench in a cement courtyard in the clear sun, the cold air, the green fields and sounds of route fifty traffic beyond the brick buildings of Chesapeake College. I sat on the bench and talked to my mother, and listened to her, and cried. I cried the way I cried when I first left the farm, the cry and ache of grief and goodbye. It was late in the afternoon, and the few students left on campus kindly went in different directions.

When I turned thirty Gretchen, who is wise woman and wolf woman to me, which is teacher medicine, (this link is where she works--an artic wolf sanctuary in the coast ranges of Oregon) gave me an extensive, 11 page single spaced reading of my natal chart that her long time wild woman friend of over fifty years did for me. I was living on Truslow Road then, had literally just started a line of intention and prayer influenced by Gandhi and Women Who Run With the Wolves based on the idea that I was discontented in life due to self-compromise and not following my heart. The birth chart was so eerily on point, so exact to the actual detail in more than one circumstance that I couldn't look at it again for three months after my first read. Self trust is the most important lesson for you to learn.

It took three years, til now, to come to a place where I can say I am willing above all to trust me, to trust in me and follow my heart and my inner power and guiding song. And this, this final departure of packing up my sweet little apartment on Goldsborough and Hanson here in Easton, where I've only been for 7 months, is breaking my heart. But it's not all of it. I'm leaving. I'm leaving -- Josh, Brandon! Katie and fun nights at Anngar, Amy and Megs and sweet afternoons in the yard! Late nights on cold cements and talks and talks and cigarettes and coffee. Magnolia trees and Play it Again Sams! The puffballs on campus in the spring oh god the geese calls in the fall. Chester River and so many swims and talks and the moon, greasy subs and potlucks, gardens and oh the hot ass dry ass choking ass Eastern Shore sun. Dust and tractors, woods and blackberry growing wild.

I'm leaving. And I am packing, and I dont have energy for this anymore, and greif feels like train tracks most overgrown by yellow weeds and thick grass clumps with no train there, and the tracks are laid down and part of you--and they hurt in your throat and feel like an incense uncurling on the air in your gut and after a while you just have to surrender to the uncurling....

And O god Kevin who went even tho like Konan said we were just waiting all those years to get the call, and saying goodbye to Brian and how just this past Friday I saw Hupman for the first time in a decade and we immediately cried to see each other and the first words out of his mouth were Fannon...because yes that's what happens after someone dies the crew falls apart cuz it hurts too bad to see one another, and jesus Mike you too and all those angry late night fuck yous after you chose the gun. How fucking much I hate goodbye. Realizing months later, after I was gone from Choptank how leaving Brandon and then losing Josh sent me in to something like ptsd where I was just stuck on loss and looping again and again through the anguish of sudden grief. And remembering Grammy coming to me those couple bad, bad times at Chop...Grammy who came to me again last night even tho it wasn't hella bad, just me and nuzzling under a soft blankey quiet and tender the tears out after talking to mom. Grammy was there, I could feel her near she has a certain way of softly filling my spirit that is specific and settling to her. And now Jenny Lewis is singing to me there but for the grace of god....and I am caught on my breath, and think of what mom said yesterday. I only know to tell you what your Grammy always used to say Kel. This too, shall pass.

This too
this too
this too shall pass. I just want for you to be peaceful Kel mom said. Not to have to struggle so much. No shit I answered, the struggles been all about learning to hold my own reigns ma. I'm there, now. This is what I've been struggling towards these past years.

Getting to be set on the ocean, the wide open calling ocean of me. And trusting the direction of the breeze, the tides, wherever they will take me, will flow me. Being at one in surrender and trust. The ocean the breeze the wide open calling, all of me...

Right. Good reminder, and now I recall in the time of vision at the end of Harvest last year, in that space of timelessness at Halloween when I moved here to Easton. And knowing that more than anything my month in Oregon would be one great rest. Just juicy, and savory, and replenishing from within.

O fucking god amen amen amen.