moments

 sometimes i'm so struck by time that i wonder if i'm dying and part of my mind knows it - like a slow version of my life flashing before my eyes- playing back the memories. so vivid. so aware of it's passage. it's the feeling of wanting to grab onto something but it's water running through my hands and i have this helpless awareness that all those moments and milestones have come and gone. they only live there- somewhere in my mind. 

it's almost always related to my children. their little feet come to me when i see their giant ones on the couch now. their little rhymes when i hear deep voices- so deep i wonder who is in my living room? their toe-heads stretching for a taller pencil mark on the wall, now we need a stool to reach that 6 foot 5 1/4 mark. 

time.

life is so exquisitely beautiful. 

how does it just keep going like it does?

10 years ago we were striping down our lives in atlanta. selling the things we owned. ridding ourselves of excess clothes and books and toys, furniture and cars- but so much more than that. we said goodbye to a life and chose another one. we left 'normal' and known.

we entered an adventure. we became outsiders. we joined a community. we had many lessons to learn. little toes were covered in red dirt and callouses and squirrels were replaced by monkeys- OJ became passion juice and for the kids not much mattered other than running free with friends until the sun set at 7.  

the thing about time is in the present you aren't thinking about how it will become the past. we gave them diversity. eyes wide open. ears to hear others in another tongue. perspective. it came at a cost. the cost of knowledge. the cost of 'home' being a confusing word. the cost of belonging to more than one land, and yet nowhere at once. 

when the sky closes herself up like this, white and cloudy, huddled with blue and grey moments, my mind runs through the years. questions rise up. aching. a beautiful ache that i wouldn't change.

nothing has been easy- but it's been real. these 10 years have broken, bled and purified me. 

what crazy times these are- what memories will they become? 

cherish. (to protect and care for lovingly) (hold dear) (to keep in ones mind)

i must cherish this moment. now. this sky with it's creeping light. this song on the radio. the sandy headed boy playing with his dog outside the window forever barefoot. and the bright orange flowers and purple pedals on the creeping vines and the spikey zigzag plants. the lichen covered rocky ground. and yes even the screech of the ibis and the weedwacker. 

i will cherish those feet on the couch before they grow any bigger -

cherish it all because so quickly, it will go.