Like a Warm Sweater.

A slow, steady walk on the sunny, sacred ground of a Costa Rican mountain town called Alajuela.

My movement is nearly silent, like a deer blending into the quiet of the night.

Every step intentional, moving with the earth, alongside her, in tune with her presence resting on my back like a warm sweater.

My arms are heavy and relaxed.

Fluid, like water.

A peaceful walk on this peaceful, quiet day.

Never in a hurry.

Never spending wasted energy on stress or schedule, leaving me depleted, empty.

Never feeling my shoulders creep up out of apprehension or defense, a shield I hold up when I feel unsafe, when I don't know what's coming.

Here I move effortlessly, I glide on ice. 

My feet brush along the walkway like a paintbrush of silk to a blank canvas.

My breath is deep, full.

It  fills me up like a channel of love, warming my chest and then releasing again into my belly.

A full day’s breath.

A full day’s prayer, like a finished thought, uninterrupted by noise and chatter: the usual backdrop of Nashville traffic, racing thoughts, fears of letting people down, letting myself down, fears of failing or forgetting something important.

Heat like summer touches my skin and I smile.

Gazing lovingly to my right, just beneath the wings of the nearby Mother Palm Tree, I see the city of San Jose, a magnetic sea of tiny dots, like a speckled quilt of various colors and stories all blended together.

I don’t remember the last time I was this relaxed.

I don’t remember the last time I slowed down, like this.

Completely unattached to plans.

Completely unattached to people.

Temporarily released from that dazed look I give when I don’t know quite what to say because I don’t know quite what I want.
Out of tune with my Center, my inner Truth.

I am unattached and present.

Unattached and alive and free: walking, moving, breathing with the earth as she warms my back and carries my weight on her lap.

That Ugly Word

Clingy.

Like a nasty, sneaky tick found in the Alabama forest in the middle of July.

The kind you never quite notice until the end of a busy day, the kind that takes a team of committed friends to pick off, all with wide eyes, a collective stubborn will, refusing to let nature win this one.

Clingy.

The name that is more often given to women than men when perhaps, there is another side of the story called “Fear of Real Love” or, “Resistance to Authentic Intimacy”, a block that starts in your chest and grows bigger every time your heart gets stepped on.

Clingy.

Like a contagious disease you didn’t know you had, the kind that keeps kids away from you at the playground.

The kind that gives you the side eye in a crowded room. 

Two steps toward the door, a quick escape.

Now I have only been called this word once or twice in my life, once probably given from myself, but, what is it with that word?

For the month of March, I have tried to create a sense of space in my life.

A space for healing.

For questions.

A space to come back to my creative center.

A space for silence.

And as I sit myself down for an interview and I ask that one uncomfortable question that Emily Siner from the local NPR station encourages every interviewer to do, I feel my eyes wander or my phone calling my name or anything to distract myself from releasing these terrifying, heart-probing words out of my zip-tight lips.

The question is this: 

What are you clinging to in your life in order to distract yourself from reality?

Two things: 

1- We are all clingy. Own it.

2- I am the expert at distracting myself and I cling to an overcrowded schedule.

Also, there's this: I love hard.

I bend over backward for people at the cost of my own personal growth.

I do more than I need to for my students, and because of this, I get taken advantage of by 15 year olds all across this city.

And I cling, hard.

I cling to what’s comfortable, what’s familiar, predictable, safe.

And I don’t know what that means for Future Me.

But we all start somewhere, right?