shooting stars

i'm here, at the foot of mount tam, with the tall pines and the windiest, narrowest roads and the big ferns and the light crackling through the fir trees like spears. and it's been good. 

it's night now. it's quiet here in a way that the city can't be. quiet and still in a way that the south isn't- it's lonely silent- there are no tree frogs- no wind sounds in this valley. but i just saw a shooting star.  yellow streaking across the blackness- breaking up the stillness-reminding me of motion in the universe- then i looked up again and saw another star chasing it.  like four leaf clovers in the sky- raining down good luck when i wasn't even looking for it.

we've been so many places in the past four days that my head is spinning- and this is the first time i've sat down alone. 

i'm someone who needs some alone.  but it's been good.  so good.  reviving. renewing. reminding me. calling me back to other places and seasons- places that i've grown in, seasons that have challenged me.  places of peace.

today the marin headlands. sunshine and fennel and dry grass and views that go on forever. i found life in those hills during those years of hours of fighting illness and death as a resident.  paths that we hiked over and over with zoe on mikes back or running along over roots and stones. paths that echoed life as they wove between dark earthy shade and bright bare sun- steep parts and down hills and single-file flats.

a birthday at a park.  a man outside the playground, roaming alone with a boom-box playing led zeppelin wearing a jacket that said 'dance' in big white letters. pizza and pinatas and juice boxes and sand.  bringing us back to our years there.

our old church. friends and the music and the words of a wise man.  those seats where i cried every sunday i could make it there- cried out the sadness in the world of the hospital, the heartbreak of zoe's challenges, and the fear during my pregnancy with jude.  cried in the joy of a God who cares about all of it.

yoyo speaks english now and eats pot stickers and pancakes and watches elmo.  and lisa is not just lisa anymore- she's a mom-beautiful, busy, tired, but so happy.  and all the people we left four years ago- their kids read and write and have opinions instead of sippy cups. and you see when you return to a place, that life has gone on with out you.

there is the ocean at the end of the city- at the end of the golden gate park. the wind is always blowing off the ocean and making it cold, and the light at that unchanging angle, it hasn’t changed- it hasn’t aged. and I was ok until the coffee shop- until our old house, our street, our coffee shop and being recognized and remembered and then it was all too much.  there were tears back behind my sunglasses and my blue eyes and I just missed it all- the light and the wind and the sea, but most of all the years when it was easier and when babies were babies and didn’t talk yet, and zoe was- well- easy.  when life still felt undiscovered and beginning and not settled into- when we didn’t own anything – life was still borrowed and even with three kids we hadn’t decided who we were yet.  anticipatory living. all the license plates said ‘california’ which meant 'new' and 'potential' and felt ‘gold rushy’. 

and i went back to that place of wanting a tattoo- of grappling for pieces that make me feel like me- all the different shades.  wanting to imprint the parts that i forget about- to cling to the parts that aren't unfreezing fish and cooking zucchini, arguing over copy work and hair washing with zoe, telling people to stop fighting and put away shoes.

but that first afternoon we spent hours at the ocean. really hours.  just mike and i and our history -our lives- our choices – our differences and sameness.  we called back the choices we’d made and were making.  we called back and dissected our communication- what we want out of life and marriage and our days.  it was intense and good and needed. 

we called the kids and they cried about our being gone and missing us and we told them we loved them and walked the lower haight amazed that we helped create three people who rely so heavily on us for their days- but that we were a ‘we’ before them.  and that was good to remember.

we're half way to home- four more days- to just be.  to be reminded that we are all the parts that were and the parts that are.   that all of them are blessings- our past, our now, our future.  hiking the headlands, or letting out the dog, or trying to think in 'shillings' instead of dollars.  eucalyptus, tree-frogs or monkeys- there are shooting stars in every night sky.