My dearest bloggereaders! I have been remiss in not recounting the tales of my US travels as they happened. Partly it had to do with the challenges of remote working; the other part had to do with temperatures ranging in the high '90s during which time my brain sagged woefully.
I am back in the saddle after my three-week digital respite. It felt forced because I yearned to tell you about my daughter's adventures riding a former thoroughbred racing horse for several weeks; or my son's incredible swimming abilities; my niece and nephew's fabulousness; their mother's (my sister's) kindness; the great shopping deals I found at Tyson's Corner with my oldest sister whose hawklike eye left no garment unturned. I wanted to tell you about reconnecting with old friends I hadn't seen in ten years but who are cut from the same cloth such that we bonded wordlessly at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. I felt compelled to share sad news of an old friend's passing, which we learned about while at the beach. Thankfully, we were surrounded by each other's memories of him, and it helped considerably.
Needless to say, I got wrapped up in the girl swirl, a fourteen-year-old trapped in a forty-year-old body. It never fails to amaze me how our genetic code holds us hostage when we return to our roots, to the very lap of our becoming. Visiting family was intense and fun and glorious and taxing. We love each other immeasurably. We are the flower which yields beauty, then kills the very plant from whence it came.
I am not certain I will ever understand the machinations of family. We are all one. Love and expectation swathed in powerful emotion. Emerging from the vortex, I feel renewed and full of gratitude for my life and all that it contains.
