mercies and movements.

David in Venice- some December morning, 2010

I feel like I have been missing for a while now. People have left and I have changed and certain things have dissipated- floating off like when you blow on a wishy washy and all the little seeds go trembling through the air. 

Nick has been gone for eight weeks in Yosemite. He has climbed huge rocks, ones I have only ever seen pictures of. One night as we chatted on the phone, he casually mentioned his plans to climb Half Dome in the morning with a German guy he had just met. I wish you could hear the way he says it, like "Haaaayeaaaah it'll be cool!" But eight weeks is so long and I have been missing my friend very much. 

Also, I've been missing The Awakening, our church service that ended last year. I haven't quite found a way to worship in place of it. I hadn't realized the significance of not having it would have on me, and to others who were deeply involved with it as well. I have attended other services, but none have taken the shape of a porch light of a warm house in the middle of the night like The Awakening was. 

And as always, my body seems to want to face east to Spain. There have been little things that catch my eyes. Our little Spanish family that came back from a year abroad has stayed so close. But it is not the same when we were free to roam streets and roam across borders into countries we had only ever seen pictures of. Oh that feeling! Of movement and adventure- it is indescribable and desirable.

How am I supposed to write about missing people and places when its so personal, experienced on a fleshy level, in every minute of the day and around certain corners of certain streets? Its about the tiny cells that make me a me and you a you. The memory patterns we walk ourselves through as we try to adjust ourselves to being without someone is awkward, a looping of "maybe this will help...nope. Okay, maybe this will help...nope again." I've moved back and forth from my bed to the couch and back again six or seven times, uncomfortable in both places. I've put my hair up, then down, up again, figuring out which makes me look more like my mom so I can carry her with me. I sit on the porch on Sabbath mornings, or sleep in, or drink coffee and try to read religious books, but my church community feels more like a vapor than it ever has. It's all very weird!

Now, I'm moving to California. Away from everything I know. In a little more than a month, which is exciting but I find myself already missing the Northwest. In a way that I want to lay on every solid surface- the streets, mountains, woody trails, up against walls and in friend's houses, my apartment floor- and memorize the curvy body of my homeland. 

But there's good news in all this- Nick is coming home tomorrow :). He's driving right now and listening to Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. And that is what I'm wishing for him and what I am hoping for myself through all this missing and moving: traveling mercies.