This past year I went back to San Angelo, Texas, where I spent my formative years. It was a special trip to visit my best friend's family. This spring, I hiked in a wilderness area in Arizona where I studied nesting bald eagles when I was in my early 20's. A few weeks ago we visited the east coast as a family and I revisited places where I lived and worked when I was 19 (in Connecticut and New York).
Without realizing it, I think that I've been led to these places to close certain chapters in my life -- in order to start a new one. In the course of these wanderings, I feel like I've expanded from the inside. My spirals are outward and upward, reaching toward something new and different. The spiraling feels wild and unmoored. It's in the revisiting that I am learning what my new direction will be. I think that you have to know where you've come from to know where you need to go next.
Central Park, NYC
You are here: Our GPS did not work on the east coast and so we spent a lot of time looking at maps, and especially maps on kiosks with a big dot and arrow that said "You are here." I took this to heart and made it my motto. I tend to get anxious when I'm in big cities, and especially on the crowded east coast. Whenever I got homesick, I would say to myself, "you are here" and could feel myself step back into the moment with my family and enjoy..."
