3 days away

today it was -4 degrees when i left for work. somehow it's still beautiful. there is snow on the ground. the house is warm and so was my office and the light going and coming from work was calm and holding- a closed sky. 

i just returned from 3 days away in newport, RI with mike. one day of decompressing, the body lets go of the stress of it all. one day of being, just being in the moments, walking the ocean trail between the sea and the mansions built a century ago, preferring the view of the waves and rocks. listening to the wind, the pull of the tide on rock and sand. crawling up boulders, past different shades of lichen, far from my typical days. then one day of opening up, dreaming, sharing, remembering older versions of selves. talking about how to hold that, bring it back, keep it in our days. 

so good.

i read an article by tish harrison the day i got back about change in hard times, impossible circumstances, it was also about bearing. it was called 'go slow and repair things'. i've been in a season of hard things at work in a job that i care desperately about. i care so much about it that it wakes me in the middle of the night most nights and i do the best thing i can do, i pray. i pray for people by name. i work with people with disabilities, and with people who care for people with disabilities, who also require care because the job is hard. and in my patients i see my daughter. i hear her voice, her struggle to be understood, her frustration, her hypersensitivity to the world around her, her overwhelm. and i see someones brother, son, sister, aunt. 

i am by nature, a sprinter. my life has been trying to teach me long distance running over and over for decades there is no sprinting in autism.  i like pushing hard and overcoming. i like moving fast and winning. i don't like pain. enduring. pacing. i want to get it over with. but what i'm realizing, again, is that many things require time, long-suffering, going actually slowly, and repair. 

the article was about how we often want big moves, powerful changes to bring about things, quick fixes that get the job done, but so often the actual right moves are slow repairs- small scale shifts, gentle nudges, one person, (or turtle) at a time. we each do our part, or we make what seems like a slight adjustment, we have a conversation, we invite someone, show kindness, respond differently, find the third way. eventually that is how change happens. 

initially i was thinking about this in terms of work- and it's very applicable. but then i began to think about it personally too. what if i held on to day 3 of my trip by going slow and repairing the abandoning of self that can happen.  what if i made small shifts to find those old versions of myself that painted and did collage and wrote? what if i dreamed? what if i looked at the lichen colors and climbed more rocks? 

3 days away gave that space to see more broadly. to remember. to reconnect. to slow down. to look at what might need repair.