Somerset

Weeks disappear in a rush, you do not write. Your journal is scribbled mayhem, trying to recall the exact color of the ocean on the west coast and the way the jellyfish stingers nettle your skin for just a brief moment before all you taste is salt. How your eyebrows turn white. How your heart rests differently in your chest when it is held up by those who've known you forever. How simple gratitude feels when everything is just the way you'd hoped. 

I arrived in England later than planned, only the slightest hint of dusk remaining as we careened through the sleeping villages. By the time I woke, rolling fields spread out around me, an old stone cottage sat on my shoulders, a foreign accent lilted around my tongue and I was unable to stop it. The dogs run ahead on our morning walks but they always find their way back. I wonder what it would be like to live here.

Weeks disappear, I do not write. 

Perhaps I don't always have to. The smell of an English rose can still linger, 
even when it's only in your mind.  

Arrive

Step off the commuter train and strain your eyes along the platform. At the very end, spot a small creature, mop of white hair, waving a balloon and a chocolate bar. He sees you in return, comes barreling towards you, arms outstretched, chocolate bar flailing. For children, reunions are simple, tangible, the hug comes easy. It's no more, no less than this moment. 

You sink back into your homeland, find your footing, hear your accent return, sleep like you never had trouble breathing. It feels complicated when you think about it. 

But maybe it's no more, no less, than moments stacked on each other. Maybe you're making mountains out of what could've just been 
a hug.  

Check In

One of the chickens disappears. Plucked – no pun intended – straight from the coop and vanished without a trace. Your nephews take it upon themselves to play detective, scouring the fields below with the kind of gusto only young sleuths could muster. 

You feel a sadness you don't currently have space for. 

A whole month passes, you do not write. There is no time – emotional or otherwise – in your schedule for efforts of such magnitude. You are tired. You are a wrung-out dish rag at the peak of summer, something doesn't add up. Your suitcase is a hundred pounds of expectations, plus a raincoat. The weather forecast changes by the day. Before you're back here, you'll have faced snow. Life is strange, and wondrous, and impossible all at once. This is the gift, when you remember to view it through that lens. 

Two days to departure. Everything is lighter 

after takeoff.  

Right

The desert doesn't linger, you are immediately thrust back into the world. Inspiration peters, the itch to always be writing is replaced with a to-do list. You founder in the questions. Outside the window, a minor squall whips itself across the valley, you commiserate with its dejected attitude. You're feeling something similar yourself. 

It's the knowing something is waiting in the wings that gets you. It's the impatient knockings of outside demands that drain the inspiration from your fingertips. You always were a sucker for a checked box. 

One thing at a time. The rain will pass, the sun return. One stumble does not make a fall.  

and Leaves

Another morning in the desert, I climb over the tortoise gate to the sandy path and run straight into one of the hard-shelled ancients, steady and still on the path. It does not care for my rush, sunny Sunday mornings are a day of rest for reptiles, like any other. You think you should take note, but where you come from, summers were not for resting, but for reviving, for returning to a life that had done nothing but rest all winter, had done nothing but lie in wait. 

The messages from across the ocean are clear: the first trembling days of summer are here, life is returning to their limbs, their hopeful hearts. It all begins now, and they don't want to miss a minute of it. 

In the 90-degree heat, in the scorching sunlight, in the towering awe of these red rocked mountains, I feel the same. Back at the house, a story waits patiently. You've lit the fire again, everything is buzzing. 

You know this is how it begins.  

Canyon

Early morning, the air is still but the bike paths and sidewalks already busy, everyone trying to get a moment in the sun before it turns into a swelter. You lace your shoes and turn up the canyon, legs aching to burn, lungs longing for the clarity that only comes at the end of a run. It's been decades, and you never tire of this feeling. Have found no drugs to beat the soar of this cleanse. 

The canyon is quiet as you enter, ancient cliffsides towering over you with little shade to offer. Lizards scurry where you run, the odd pedestrian offering a friendly hello but in your mind you are elsewhere. Last night, we climbed to the top of a petrified sand dune to watch the eons unfold beneath us, the awe of a million years like a comforting blanket around us as the sun set. On the page, a little girl discovers the magic of a new world and you think, that's exactly how it is. You feel again that responsibility to bring her into this one, to make something of all of these ideas. 

Remember again who you are
and what you came here to do.  

102

The sun shines, relentless in the summer afternoon, as you trip quickly on bare feet across hot rocks. 102 degrees, this land was not made to be made civilized. Every law of nature lies defeated, it feels the way a note feels when it's off key. The snowbirds moved everything from their other towns here, made it all the same, just warmer, just unbearable. America, did you never stop to think of reason? No, I know the answer is no. 

A little girl waits at the end of the blinking cursor. She is impatient now, she's warmed up to the dance and wants to keep running. You feel the buzz yourself, you want to run right with her.  The others retreat to their rooms, take a break, take a chance to recover from all the rest of life but you are at the edge of the cursor now, you have a leap ahead of you and nothing but the skies beyond, don't you see? You built this life and now it is time to reap the rewards. 

Take my hand. 
We've a long, long way to jump.