This Is It

I found a quote this morning. A Victor Hugo quote: Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.

How beautiful are these words, this exhortation to sing out and be who we are even when we feel life's branches bending beneath us? Anyway, this is all hitting me and I'm not sure why exactly, but here I am in my favorite place, tapping keys, processing, smiling. You've probably noticed that I've been less present here, that my posts are fewer and farther between. Once upon a time, I wrote a post every single day of the week here and these days it's just been a sprinkling. But I'm realizing that's okay. I'm changing and so is this place.

I guess you could say that I'm feeling a pull toward the physical world, toward its moments and hues, toward the people and stories in it. I find myself noticing things, tiny things that feel meaningful, details of my days. Just this morning, I went outside in my pajamas and rain boots. I clutched my cup of coffee and walked my bundled girls to their bus. There was a dusting of yesterday's snow still on parked cars and I snuggled my girls into my side. Our neighbors passed with their dog Truffles and we pet him. The bus pulled up and I put them on. Their driver, a jolly man named Junior asked if I was holding a bowl or a giant teacup. This is how serious I am about drinking my coffee, I said, laughing.

I waited on the sidewalk as the bus pulled away. I waved and sipped my coffee. I felt the cold air on my cheeks. I looked up and down our little street and I felt full. This is it, I thought. These words are repeating on a loop in my head these days, these three simple and stunning words, this realization, hard-earned and perplexing, that I am in it, a life I love and have worked for.

I guess I'm just trying to be here. Here. In this moment of my life. This moment when my girls are real people, but still small, fiercely independent and full of cuddly needs. This moment when my mind is soft and serene, filled with gratitude and characters. This moment when the holidays loom in all their glittery goodness, and edged complexity. This moment when I find myself thinking of Dad because he is so completely gone. I wonder sometimes if he can see me and the symphony of this good, rich life that feels for once authentic and wild. I wonder if he can see my ladybugs, their blue eyes and tangled hair and his trademark SD silliness it seems they've inherited.

I guess this post is just a messy ode to the moment, to this Now that feels exquisite and precarious because it is necessarily passing, to all this love and all this life, to these branches that are most stunning because they are delicate and bending. I guess this is post is my song and me singing out.

I'm sitting at my kitchen island. Writing these words. Feeling these things. The Goo Goo Dolls are crooning, in this exact moment: Take these words and sing out loud... I hear this and smile.

Oh do I smile.

This is it.