Home, Only Sweeter

Whew. What a summer, folks. And what a fall, coming up. I keep starting this blog post and then, realizing that I don't have the mental capacity to write, deleting it. I haven't had much mental capacity lately. As you poor souls whose emails yet go unanswered know all too well.

My house is a mess. It's been a mess for about a month now. I'm slooooooooowly putting it back together, but the chaos of it is seeping into me. I'm not myself when my house is a mess.

A lot of people I love are hurting right now. There are divorce, terminal illness, abuse, dementia, poverty, and exhaustion plaguing people all around me. And this week, my body up and kaput on me, and here I lie, feverish and achy and wheezing, praying that I'm well enough to make the weekend trip I have planned, to visit one friend in prison and watch another friend in a play. How's that for whiplash?

I've taken the plunge, filled out the time-off-request form, made the announcement: late this fall, I'm headed home, to eastern Pennsylvania, to visit my family. And when I say "family," I mean my sister, my best friend from college, and a woman I like to pretend is my mom but isn't, not biologically anyway. When I say "family," I never mean the people to whom I'm related. For the record.

Christmastime in eastern Pennsylvania. Oh. Sweet. Lord. The baggage. Ohhhhhhh, the baggage. We'll be staying in downtown Philly for part of that time. Right in the middle of where soooooo much happened. And then in Easton, where soooooo much more happened. Just, so much. I fear the trip, the place, that it might swallow me. And I love the place too, and long for it with all my intensity, because I fled in such a frenzy, like leaving a play just before the denouement. I never found out how it ended, the life I was living there. The friendships cut off so abruptly that some people still have no idea what happened to me. Some people thought I was dead, can you believe it? I hope no one thinks that now.

I can't wait. I miss these people so much, people who are like extensions of my own soul. People I think about every single day and haven't seen in years. I've never taken a trip like this before, a trip when I only see people who love me. People who didn't abandon me. People to whom I my heart opens freely, to whom I don't wrench it open for obligation or guilt. People who want me. There aren't too many of those, where I come from.

I feel well now. Even when I meet the darkness that swims in my veins, I can still see the light. And still in me it is, that darkness. But it tastes different now, smells different, feels silky on my palate. Where there used to be old, tepid, cheap coffee, there is now dark chocolate. Still dark, but a welcome, worthy darkness. And now to learn what I am, who I am, with the sweetness and the softness. To do that, I'm going back to the place where I was, to feel it around me, to swim in it, and to feel myself in it. I know I must have something to offer to others, to the world, some way that I can reach out, give back, extend. But, Lord knows, I have no idea what or how.

And that's the

Achoo!

That's the

Achoo!

That's the news

Achoo!


Grrrrrr. That's the news from 'round here. I'm spent. I still promise pictures of my creations, when there's a bit more of me to go around. Off to

Achoo!

bed.