Winter strolls
welcome me home.
***
Coffee. Black
coffee. I kiss the lid and passionately greet hot caffeine. I take pride in the
lingering imprint of red lips staining pristine white.
This is my cup.
The coffee rides
shot-gun down familiar, winding roads. An old commute rediscovered without the
GPS.
Kentucky back
roads. Horse country. My country.
Kentucky in
winter emanates a hushed serenity, a whispering calm my marrow recognizes as
soul-feed, and I brave the biting temperatures to venture in solitude, or with
my family, down well-worn paths in the meditating company of trees. The brisk
walks in winter serve as a healing remedy to cleanse thoughts through movement,
and in the stretching, there’s a creation of space, a humming harmony.
This drive is
my walk through and twisting around memory lane. I keep passing my past self,
but the remembrances don’t lead me back, the recollections are transmuted into
a heightened presence where I sense where I was, where I am going, where I am
now freed to go. Past, present, future
all merging on the old, empty reach of road.
I drive in
silence, without the typical Spotify playlist to narrate the scene. The landscape
murmurs spells, luring me to press onward into the belly of hills and explore
territory unknown but one that my feet still recognize as home.
There’s a
freedom still found in an expansive tumble of familiar road, and though enticed
to stray, I stay on course and continue toward the arms of a friend, who is life-force,
resiliency, an almost tangible current of compassion beams from her being.
Almost a year since I last saw her and a lifetime of stories have redefined and
shaped our lives. There are stories I need to hear, stories I need to be told,
and a few of my own to share as well.
The sheer power
of story propels my Kentucky visit forward toward an enlivened sense of
freedom.
Freedom. My
spirit-word for my twenty-seventh year (I choose governing guide-words and
plant intentions on my birthday in May) performs a comeback during my Kentucky
stay.
I thought I’d
find freedom in Texas. I chased mystery lights in Marfa and steered the wheel
through parts of far West Texas to claim freedom. I quit jobs in acts of moral
defiance and to protect my self-expression and my creative gifts. I ran away
from the reach of a man who scorched my innocence and burned such a warning
that I feared I’d never recover my lightness.
The lightness
did return, but not by racing toward freedom, not by scrambling to rebel, but
by creating a pause and surrendering into relaxation, restoration, resettling
ease.
During my
Kentucky stay, I find freedom in vulnerable allowing and radical
self-acceptance.
Egoistical
confession: There is a purring part of myself that indulged in a daydream to
skip back to my hometown with a story of sparkly success and high-fiving
achievement. But this is not my truth. I purchase a faux-fur (fake, I promise
that coat’s furriness is fake!) to appease my ego and delight in prancing
around downtown in Austin-chic attire, but I choose honesty to compliment the
coat. I voice my struggles behind the move. I openly share my frustrations and
soul-purpose ponderings.
I experience
luminous freedom in speaking this truth to my tribe, a constellation of
change-makers, artistic rebels, enlightened activists, coffee shop monarchs,
poetic yoginis. There is freedom in belonging, in reaching out and
reconnecting, in nurturing the roots of stable relationships.
The highlights
of my winter tale in Kentucky are snapshots of reunions where stories are
shared in between bites of flaky croissants, foamy cappuccinos, and slippery
sweet cocktails.
These joyful
catch-ups over the holiday are chapters, a continuation of story, and the
spirit of story continues only when there’s an allowing for people to change,
for people to be freed to travel through experiences and voice the lessons and
feelings coursing through the deep chambers of their life.
In the sharing
of story there is also a freedom from attachment to it. For the current story
never defines a person. There’s a constant rewriting that shapes a narrative. I
find freedom with the people who allow my present self to emerge in all its
colorful complexity, and in the next meeting, greet me with the same fresh curiosity
and openness to receive, and I intentionally attempt to hold that openness and
allowing for others.
The story of my
Kentucky stay includes confrontations and conclusions, too. I find the greatest
freedom in the endings, the sighed exhalations from tensions too long-held,
from grievances too long-carried. Forgiveness lifts stones of grudges and
creates channels for breath. Conflict clarifies my truth, and the whip-and-whirl
of drama boils down to an opportunity to proclaim freedom as well.
I find freedom
in all the stories weaving to encompass my stay, and feel a rejuvenated
aliveness in journeying out to the countryside to meet my friend. The morning
drive, the hot coffee, the stories waiting to be spoken and caught in
tenderness energizes an ease that informs me that it is now time to leave.
This spirited
lightness nudges me to return to Texas. I can land back in Texas with the
winter calmness of Kentucky. I can let the stories of my Kentucky stay lavish
strength and support to keep me steady in my own unfolding. This rush of
freedom I feel as I drive through Lexington countryside can continue to flow
through my Austin commutes. I ease into being exactly as I am – a Kentucky girl
at heart deepening and lifting into spirited freedom in the Lone Star State.
***
Winter
Songs Narrating The Unfolding Scene:
*Good
Old Days – Macklemore & Kesha
*Wander
– Trevor Hall
*River
Lea – Adele
*Hello
My Old Heart – The Oh Hellos
*Spirit
Cold – Tall Heights
*Into
Gold – Matthew & The Atlas
*Straight
Into Your Arms – Vance Joy
