aligned

Some friends and strangers told us that it was ill-chosen to have a wedding and a birthday in the same weekend. It was October and it was golden and the leaves looked like coins and I could not have asked for a better birthday gift than to trust myself enough to not listen to any of them. I was not naive. I knew, and still know, all the nuances. I was just finished with weighing out the options until they turned to a rotted mulch. Time has a way of pushing up what matters and pruning away what does not.

We celebrated and we opened the day to all the energies that a marriage can draw forth in community. The dual nature of reunions. The organic ways people come and go; in death and birth and breaking aparts and coming togethers.

Walking home today, watching the warm light grow and letting the winter air flow into my open jacket, I was glad in my skin. Proud as hell of us. Here we are four months later having a small anniversary and his birthday on the same day. There is sous vide steak and pie and football and my dog sleeps happier than I’ve witnessed in 15 years. We are slowed down in this winter season and we are watching the world and participating; in new ways, old ways. Our ways. It is a year ahead of observance. Of being in one’s lane. Of allowing all the time to unfold. As it does.

So goddamn grateful.

I am thinking a lot about parallels. A woman tells me how cold she is here and how she secretly likes it. So much, she says. “I had a fire burning in the kiva in my airbnb all night; they are going to think something about me!”

A friend and I sat at a dark and quiet bartop and discussed the world. Charred radicchio. The way tempranillo feels like smooth blood. The way we have no more time for the things that do not matter. For we have all the time for the good. For we all hold parallels.

She tells me to think of a photo of him and myself when we took our first road trip together. Years ago when we were so fresh. Camping. Messy hair and vulnerable newness,

and to remember that it matters what we’ve built. And to be proud.

Another brilliant friend writes to me after her turn with the All Fours currently being passed around the shop. “Or! Maybe she has a dishonest understanding of herself, but because she is so confident she doesn’t have to question it, but inhabit it…which is its own sense of honesty.”

Not long ago, I used to ask anything for forgiveness; for want of almost anything. I am understanding that it is a delicious relief to forgive yourself the inner parallels. To remain open.

Last weekend I visited my grandma for her birthday in Colorado. My mom and I listened to live music in the lodge the night before the nursing home party. We sang and cried and hugged. It snowed heavy overnight. We were calm and stressed at once. I was happy to be resting in the rockies and we ran out of hot water. We tried on new levi’s and laughed because we had no warm socks. The dollar store balloons flew out of the car up and away to a flock of winter geese. The cake was not etched with the wished words. I drove home more tired and full of what mattered.

I love the ways the world keeps showing themes. If I would say something about planets I would say that I hear they’re aligned.

7 of them. Aligned and pointing like a throughline.

That it may be the most important thing.

With confidence,

I love you so.

(And happy birthday husband)

to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce

Gretel Erhlich