I knew there wouldn’t be room on the truck for most of our furniture, and we wouldn’t be in our own place again for a while, so we could take only the things we really cared about. The kids’ beds and dressers, my favorite chair, my desk, a few small pieces. It was hard at first to separate emotion from practicality, to take away the layers of memory from each thing. To see a sofa, and not the place where the kids would curl up to watch TV. To see a kitchen table that could be replaced and not see Elle and Hunter’s heads bent over their homework, or the small streaks of paint that Elle had left on it, or to remember the early days when Hunter was small enough to walk underneath it without bumping his head.

For years, I’ve meant to refinish that table, to start over with just wood and sandpaper and brush and stain. But when it came time to move, I gave the table – along with several other pieces of furniture – to a young couple who had just gotten married and were setting up house. I knew they didn’t have a lot of money, and he’s in the Army, about to deploy to Afghanistan for 15 months.  When I saw all of the furniture loaded onto their truck, I had tears in my eyes. Not because I was sad to see it all go, but because it felt so good to pass along some of the goodness that’s been showered upon me these last few weeks. It felt exactly right.

Of all the things I gave away or left behind, that table was the only thing that I thought of later, wondering if I should have tried to hold on to it. I imagine that its new owners will refinish it now and give it a new life. It may yet see many years of homework and paint and PlayDough and comforting meals.

Here, in this lovely neighborhood where we’re living for now, I walk along the sidewalks in the evening and find myself watching the snapshots of life in the squares of windows. The curtains framing the scenes inside. People eating dinner or watching TV. The pictures on the walls. The furniture that fills the rooms.

Because I love the history of things, of houses and antiques and places, it takes  a great effort for me to remind myself that those lovely houses, and those pieces of furniture, don’t really tell the story – certainly not the whole story – of the people to whom they belong. No more than that kitchen table tells our story.

Because if it did, it wouldn’t speak of just the good memories, it would have to tell all of it. It would have to say that most of the time there were just three people sitting at a table meant for four.

So the table – along with so many things – is gone now, and all that the three of us can call our own fits inside a 10 X 15 storage unit. But that’s not the whole truth, either.

In starting over as we have, we’ve left behind so much that wasn’t really needed, the most significant of which was the idea of a life that couldn’t ever have happened the way we hoped or imagined. I gave up what would never be, while putting to rest what never was. It was the only way to make room for another set of possibilities, other dreams, ones that will find their foundation in this new reality.

I hope that my children will come to know someday that what we have left now, what is truly ours, is what is real. The love of our family and friends, this new life that we can make into whatever we want it to be. That our comfort or our happiness isn’t tied to that table or to the other furniture, any more than the wind is tied to the earth. The tethers that hold us in place, that keep us grounded, are the ones that tie us to the people we love.

And though there are days when it feels like we’re starting over from nothing, days when I have to be gentle with this bruised pride of mine, when I’m scared that I won’t be able to manage what’s ahead, when I can’t believe that I’m starting over at this point in my life, I have to remind myself how lucky we really are. Because when everything else is stripped away, we’re still left with more than enough. Something solid and true, something blessedly, perfectly, unfinished.

Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself

What she didn’t know was that this is one of my favorite passages.

I left her a note.

“Did you know that I’ve had this memorized for at least 15 years? (Ah, if only I knew it by heart…)”

You know how it goes. Some lessons take longer to learn than others.

Some things you learn in no time at all, like tying a shoe or riding a bike. Others take weeks, months, years. And sometimes you realize you knew it all along, that you always knew what to do if you would just let go, to realize you have a longer stride in you, bigger steps than the timid ones you’ve been taking there in the shallows.

So you walk out farther, and if the bottom drops out, you swim like hell. Well, I’ll be damned, you maybe say to yourself. You always knew how, didn’t you?

And then you look around and realize you’re not out there alone, not even close. Around you, ready to hold you up, are all the people you love and who love and care about you.

People who would give their time and strength and hearts and resources to stand beside and around and behind you and say We’ve got your back.

And they’re looking at you, and you can’t quite figure out how to describe that expression on all their faces. Part love, yes, and encouragement. But there’s something else, too.

The name for it floats somewhere in the back of your consciousness, until you can see it clearly.

Belief.

You want to feel what they feel, that certainty that everything will turn out, and you do, in moments. But it’s been so long since you knew anything for sure, that you don’t even remember how it feels.

Until the word steps forward and gives a crisp salute. Present. Accounted for, it says. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.And then, with a wink, Did you miss me?

You think, god, yes.

Soon, other words join the first, soldiers showing up for duty. Humility. Hope. Gratitude (so much, immeasurable amounts of that). Courage. Strength. Gumption. Honesty. Friendship. Possibility.

That last one – possibility – is the newest recruit, and stands shoulder to shoulder with belief. Turns out, they’re from the same hometown.

Which brings me to the news I have to share.

The first part of it is that I have finally moved. But…not to any of the places I’ve mentioned here as possibilities. Instead, we landed in Maryland, and it’s exactly the right place for us right now.

The other part of the news is that only three of us made the move, just me and the kids. That’s also exactly the right thing for us.

I couldn’t have done it at all without the seemingly limitless help and encouragement and time that my friends and family offered us. It’s not a comfortable place to be, needing as much help as I have to make this move and to start over. But I am so overwhelmed and grateful and filled to the top with love for everyone who helped me make this happen.  At every turn, there was someone to put a gentle but firm hand at my back to keep me moving forward.

I will never be able to say a big enough thank you.

So, we’re here, where fall is starting to show itself, a show I haven’t seen in six years. I couldn’t have timed this better if I had tried, really. And now, something old becomes something new, and I have to figure out how this new life will look. I only know this, that it will be better than what was, and that’s a lot to know. More than enough.

Oh, about that thing I said to my sister, about the Whitman lines? About having it memorized, but wishing I knew it by heart?

This was her response, and it made me laugh:

“I am totally stealing that line.”

If you don’t read or subscribe to Blog Nosh yet, you’re missing out on fantastic writing and so much interesting content. So go, read, hang out there for a while (because you won’t be able to stop yourself) and then subscribe.

A huge thank you to Jennifer Doyle for making my post her Editor’s Pick for today, and for all the lovely things she said. (You can find her gorgeous writing at Playgroups Are No Place for Children.)

I miss that so much. Autumn is my favorite season, and the air is never like that here in Arizona. As though the earth is taking it all back, with color and chill and that loamy smell in the air as an apology.

Would someone please bottle it and send it to me?

I’m sure I posted this last year, but it’s one of my favorites. And well, Rilke. It’s always a good time to read his words.

Fall Day

Lord, it is time. This was a very big summer.
Lay your shadows over the sundial,
and let the winds loose on the fields.

Command the last fruits to be full;
give them two more sunny days,
urge them on to fulfillment and throw
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Who has no house now, will never build one.
Whoever is alone now, will long remain so,
Will watch, read, write long letters
and will wander in the streets, here and there
restlessly, when the leaves blow.

Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Larry Hauser and Barbara Abbott

The bedroom. Four o’clock sunlight reaches through the blinds and slants like cursive across the wall. I could see it if I open my eyes.

I lie there, two fists full of blanket tucked under my chin, holding on to these cotton fibers like they’re the only true thing I know. As though what I need is balled up inside, and if I let go I’ll lose it all for good.

As if I haven’t already.

It doesn’t matter what that thing is, not really, or how recent or far off the afternoon. Every one of us has lain there on that bed, alone. Sure that we should have seen it coming. Or worse, we actually did.

At that thought, I hold tighter to the blanket, as though I’m five and scared of the dark, back before I knew that the people in those other  rooms must have held tight to their own covers. Enough disappointment, enough lost things, for everyone.

And the one thing we all know (even if the thought is just a small stone that rolls about in the bottom of the soul) is that  it’s impossible to see the light at the end of a tunnel if that tunnel is curved. If there’s no straight shot from the entrance to the way out.

So you think, just goes to show you. It was always going to end up this way. Should have known better. How do I go toward something I can’t even see?

But, where’s the choice? So you hold your breath and listen. Open your eyes wide and strain to see in the dark. Feel your way onward by inches, only sure of the last step you took. Pinning every hope on the next step.

And so, forward.

But first, there’s that space under the blanket, and thank god for that. Except sooner or later (sometimes much later) you  realize that you’re no safer there than anywhere else. Turns out, a blanket doesn’t make a very good shield. And when the moment comes -  a meal to prepare, or kids to pick up from school – there’s nothing to do but to fold up that blanket  and put it back on the shelf.

To open your hands and let go of whatever you held on to so tightly. To trust the wind that carries away those wishes, and know that you might not get all the things you hope for, or enough of them, but there is something up ahead, waiting. And that you might just find it framed in the arc of the tunnel exit and bathed in sunlight. All the the good things that drew you forward all along, the other souls, the peace,  the version of you that you can finally let yourself see, the way others have all this time.

And you’ll think just goes to show you…

Even if you can’t finish the sentence, and you’re not sure how soon you’ll be able to. You know the answer is out there. You realize, in the light, that you can believe that much. Or you will, any day now.

You’ll let yourself believe that one day the answer will come to rest like a leaf inside you, next to the stone. And that each of them (at last) will weigh the same as the other.

I remember something that the observatory guide said that night, “When we look at the sky, we’re looking at the past.”

That one sentence has clung to me for all these months. I know it’s a scientific explanation for what looks like magic from my backyard, but it’s haunting to think that we can’t know what’s happening out there right now. It takes something like 4.3 light years for the light from the closest star in the sky at night to reach Earth, and the light from the farthest stars takes 10 or 11 billion light years to reach us. So whatever is really going on in our solar system tonight – not what we see, but what is happening in real time – no one will even see from Earth for years, centuries, millenia, longer.

To me, that does the same explosive thing to my brain as trying to imagine forever.

And yet, it’s also comforting.

We can see the past from a distance, where it shines or even fades, if we squint against it. What’s happening here on Earth matters as little to whoever is out there in the universe as what happens there matters here. There’s freedom in that.

Make the best of this life, make this one life shine as much as you can, until it drops like a flare out of sight.

Things are changing, and I can feel it.  And because things begin long before we ever know it, the future is already on its way to me, to all of us. On some horizon, speeding toward us or moving in achingly slow turns, something is rising. Full, bright.

And I’m turning toward it.

These last few months, I’ve handled words in a different way that I used to. In writing songs, I have to use fewer of them.  I still weigh, consider, trade, bargain, edit, sift, suffer over, regret, edit some more. All so that at the end of the process, maybe maybe maybe there will be a sigh or a hell, yeah or tears or goosebumps.

There’s nothing I like better than to thread them all together into strings of hundreds until they light up. Until they cast even faint light on something true, or pull the darkness from where it crouches in corners. Or just look pretty. I’m a sucker for that, too.

So there’s not much fun in admitting that sometimes, somewhere along the line, a bulb is burned out, leaving the rest of them dark.

But that’s how I’ve been feeling lately, and why so many days have passed since my last post. Our move has been delayed, so there’s that, but it’s more. Somewhere inside me, something is disconnected. Broken, maybe. Not sure yet how to label it, not sure what words to use as push pins to hold that spot in place until I can find it and sort it out.

With our move on hold for a few more weeks, I had to enroll the kids in school here until then. An adjustment, for sure, but they accepted it with a good amount of grace, edged with only the thinnest bead of disappointment at having to start school two weeks sooner than they anticipated.

Their first day, last Friday. I walked them to their classrooms. To get to Elle’s classroom, we had to walk down what they call “the quiet hallway.”

It wasn’t until I walked back along that hallway on my way out of school that I realized what an apt metaphor it was for a place I’d like to stay for a while. The quiet hallway…where I can sit and rest and watch, with my tangle of strings of lights, until I find the place where everything has disconnected. No, no. Not that one. Next. Not that one.

Oh yes, there.

So I guess that’s where you’ll find me for a while. Maybe not for long, but if the words are spare and far from each other around here, as they have been, you’ll know why.

See you soon.

_________________

I wanted to email everyone individually to thank you for the lovely, kind words about the song. Still trying to do that, but if I don’t, please know how much your words mean to me. Love you all. xoxo

It’s called “Miles To Montana,” and I have a big soft spot for this one. The inspiration for it came from a couple of posts I wrote, like this one and this one, about a long, beautiful road trip. My co-writer, Greg Cox, read those essays and thought they might make a good foundation for a song.

We went to work, wrote a story, and that’s what you’ll hear in this song. After we finished it, we decided to have a studio demo made.

Our vocalist was Lisa Gregg, the song was recorded at Beaird Music Group in Nashville, and these are the musicians you’ll hear:

Kelly Back – electric guitar

Eddie Bayers – drums

Eli Beaird – bass

Larry Beaird – acoustic guitar

Jim “Moose” Brown – keyboard

Dan Dugmore – pedal steel

Greg Cox – producer

If you check out some of those pages, you’ll see that among them, these guys have played for just about everyone – not only in Nashville, but across music genres. The reason I mention this is because that was one of the coolest things about making this demo. These incredibly talented musicians, some with pages-long discographies, gathered in a room and played the hell out of our little song. And then Lisa Gregg – who’s sung backup for Faith Hill and Reba McEntyre, among others – gave us a beautiful vocal.

Some notes:

Dan Dugmore, on pedal steel, played with James Taylor’s band for 11 years (I will never get tired of typing that…). Eddie Bayers, on drums, was honored in the March issue of Drum Magazine as “one of the top ten greatest session drummers of ALL time.” Jim “Moose” Brown, on keyboard, wrote a song you might recognize, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” which was cut by Alan Jackson and spent eight weeks at #1. And the list goes on…

It was so much fun to watch all of this happen, even from a distance, and it came out so well because Greg was there to guide the song and oversee the production.

Thanks for taking the time to listen, and we hope you enjoy the song.

Here’s the link (when you go to the page, you’ll see Play near the top, then just click on HiFi or LoFi to listen):

Miles To Montana

_______________________

My best friend – you know her as Madge from It’s a Mad Madge World – wrote a beautiful, thoughtful post today, so stop by and read if you have a moment.

As I ran the tape across the top of the box, I noticed familiar writing, the boxy all-caps print that belongs to my mother. Letters marched in formation, if a little smudged now, across the box. The box corners a bit battered, edges and middle seam thick with layers of wide tape. The top of it marked with our old Indiana address, at least five years and 1900 miles from here.

Farther, it seems, and longer ago, back to a day and place when she would have mailed something to any of us.

What I packed in that box was nothing of consequence, nothing poetic or symbolic, just the stuff of a life. I don’t remember what she sent to us in that box, just that since then, it’s been unsealed and sealed, opened and closed up again. Repeat.

A metaphor for our relationship, if ever there was one.

What I know – all I know – is that since we moved here, I’ve moved on from where I was when that box showed up at our door in Indiana, and from where I was, even, when I unpacked it here and folded the box flat again.

Things changed, even more than they had already. Hard words flew across miles like arrows, found their mark. Others never left the quiet rooms where one or the other of us thought them, then thought better. In the end, we have the relationship that amounts to all we were ever going to have, with apologies to hope and good intentions. Disillusionment buys the drinks around here.

Disillusionment and the ghosts that deliver it, sometimes in boxes.

Yes, things can come back to haunt us. People, relationships, objects. But maybe they’re only scary if we believe in their power to harm us. Once that is gone, we’re free to turn away and carry on, startled maybe, but not shaken anymore.

So if I sealed something into that box today (besides the small treasures of age eight) it’s that. The past is just the past again. What’s gone is still gone.

And a box is just a box.