The enormity of quiet gratitude

The keys for my studio in Laguna were in my hand like a talisman, some octagonal  proof of all I'd been running towards, all I left behind.  When did it change from that to this, to heading towards from leaving behind...Every throttle and instinct that propelled me dangling on a quarter-sized metal ring.  Two little keys pushed me out of Anngar Farm, out from my six year love affair with the boy with the honey eyes, pushed Josh out the door that sickening Sunday at Choptank, pushed me and Brooks to leave the Talbot County Employment Center because we knew, we insisted, convinced the other even when we didn't believe it ourselves that it had to be the Muse holding tight to those two keys.  Pushed me around Oregon in Gretchen's beater pick-up, pushed then paused, sighed deep in me, nestled me under conifers big as cities, tucked me in the mists of the Cascades, bathed me naked with Beth as I vowed, as we vowed yet again start again.  Held me tight as it cooked me clean the year and a half I moved back to Ocean Pines.  I stopped with Jayden at Rudy's Shake Shop where it looks out over the Pacific just south of Crystal Cove those keys still in my hand like a dreamscape whose designer I'd finally, finally finally! just met. Arrival!  All I could think.   That's when I got the message I was accepted to gradschool. I have done it, I have finally, finally arrived! I just kept thinking you did it Kel, you finally got here.  You have finally made those dreams come true.  It was the oddest feeling, so plain but also still.  It was right about then, that very day, when aunt Mary went in the hospital.

It switched then, my voice in my head.  Would only say this too, this too, this too.  Which is from Dani Shapiro.  I called my mom and sobbed then my dad and uncle Tim and did the same.  Then I talked to Aunt Mary, I wanted to be strong for her, I really did.  I wasn't.  It was bad I couldn't breathe.  My greatest fear about being so far from home, come true.  What happened from then to the end isn't so much private as it is a blur.  By Thursday I had a ticket home by Friday I was on the plane.  I never got to see her though, in our last conversation I was selfish and told her this sucks, exactly what I said was this effing sucks but I used the real word.  She was honest with me and direct about her pain and every little thing going on, which she knew I needed to hear because for so long she just lifted up from love and made me laugh on the phone or wanted to know about my life.  She knew I needed to hear where she was at though, to be able to have peace with her letting go.  At home it was my amazing cousins her kids who are stronger than I will ever be.  Erin my amazing sis.  Ed and Tim.  They are heroes and inspirations and I am honored they are my blood,  a testament, fully, to their mom. The pit bull in me wants to pummel something, some big shadow portion of life, for doing this to them.  I want to take them up like the puppies they are to my heart, I want to shield and shelter and take this all from them.  I am selfish and had to tell myself if they can do this so can you.  We all of us fell in line behind my uncle this amazing gentle man, we followed my dad,  they moved us gracefully through it all, we let the strength of  family lead us on.  What we've always done.  The Irish twins, eleven months between dad and uncle Tim they're calling themselves the Odd Couple since Mary's passed and it's only them in the house now, the Uncle Dad's.  Uncle dad!    All of my cousins and aunts and uncles every single one and every person ever touched by the enormity of love that comes from the combined McMullen heart.  It was homage to Aunt Mary's quiet steadiness, there and painting our edges with softness all those years, we could still feel her glow in the air.  The whole family together, all but Bernd who was unable to come from Germany.  It was the only family event since the 80's where everyone was there.  I am just so, so proud to see so clearly who I am, who I come from.  It's a hard way to come by it, but here, now, keys to Laguna and future in hand: it helps me so honestly and gratefully see where I will aim to go.

My aunt Mary was sick for three years and suffered silently until the very end.  She was an angel, the kind of person whose each day is a  triumph because she added to it the best of who she was.   She made manifest, daily, parts of the infinity of spirit within.  Irreverent but with the loving patience of a natural teacher's heart. So few rise up to that, few even try.  She did it her whole life, but especially at the end.  She raised me and my brother with her peace and easiness all those summers in Ocean Pines and those quiet nights at Shady Hill Lane.  The unconditionality of her and Uncle Tim.  She raised three awe-inspiring kids.  The safety.  They, she inspired in me absolutely some of the finest parts of who I, if I choose to step up to it, can be.  I can not take a step since she passed without seeing the footfalls left I feel now so compelled to trippingly try and fill.  When I got back here, used those keys to let myself in at midnight on Sunday, the boxes and bags packed but half-opened all around, I could do nothing but sit and soak in the shock.  Brooks said she was a Matriarch of the tribe and he told me you are, too, and when he said that it finally felt like someone got it the enormity of responsibility, the enormity of quiet gratitude at hand.  The loss.  I finally let out the twists of pain and shatter all stuck inside.

The days are passing now, will.  Life goes on.  Yesterday driving down Irvine on my way to the beach between my classes, I looked up and realized oh my gosh this feels like home to me.  Like in that merciless, taken for granted way.  This is my home, now.  I haven't said that about a place as an adult, not once, except for in Ocean Pines.  But that's what happens I guess when you walk through the open door.