on returning

i'm back. i'm home. life is real again.

while i was away the air cooled and the leaves have begun to let go. the sounds are different, the light is brighter, the haze is gone, and the air is quieter, but more alive. like someone blew the dust off a season that sat too long.

i'm feeling still. i'm feeling rested. i'm reminded of the rest of the world again. i'm especially reminded of me. that i exist outside of my children, especially my child with special needs. that her life goes on with out me- and mine with out her. that there is fun to be had, and other people to value and important things to be done, and talked about. that the world is really as big as it is- not as small as it can feel sometimes. and that i am happy.

before i left for ethiopia, i was badly stuck in my own head- my own world- myopic. i felt panicked about leaving- about my body being so far away from my people- especially the little ones- and also mike. the feeling that we'd grown together so intensely that i couldn't tell if the entanglement was good or bad, if we were the roots of trees or a giant snarl. but i knew i felt stuck in it. and this made leaving really scary. i had to snip things. i had to close my eyes and jump.

and so i did- and i landed in on the other side of the world. in addis ababa i found the parts of me that i'd forgotten. i found the voice that doesn't need to talk about zoe everyday. the heart that doesn't need to worry always about the future- or obsess over the past. that the focus my life should not always be about me and my immediate family- but friends and their lives, the world and it's needs. and in this i was reminded of the vastness of poverty and the extreme discrepancies that exist, and are often only separated by a tin fence - and a lifetime.

life is just plain unfair and compared to the rest of the world- the unfairness of my life is pretty small. but it took a week of being far away to know this again. i played with other peoples children. i held held other peoples babies. i heard about other peoples stories. i watched the beginning of other families lives.

and i took hot baths at night, and lay in the sun in the day, and i let it all go. i read a book that took me out of my head. and i remembered how to swim the breaststroke and the backstroke and play in the water and swim at night. and i was the rider not the driver. i ate and didn't cook. i didn't do a single dish or settle an argument or give a time out. and i remembered that there is much more to it than the spinning top that feels like my life. that there is more to me than i allow myself to be.

so i'm back to busy schedules, dinner and homework, dishes and timeouts. back to balancing acts and work. back to sticky thoughts and sensitive skin and boys that wrestle and accidentally give each other bloody noses. back to the people i love most in the world. back to the one who gets me- the one who's never forgotten who i am even when i have.

hopefully the light will stay crisper, the sounds clearer, the air more alive. and hopefully i can hang on to the parts of me that were dusted off after a season that has stayed much too long.