lemon ruth

this was a very awkward summer.  right now i’m watching the rain fall from a dark sky outside my big office window, and i’m surprisingly excited for these first signs of impending winter.

i love the idea of rest.  i love the fact that even the natural world works in the same way our hearts do.  it’s a tribute to the power of a good “retreat and regroup.”  when nothing esle seems graspable, there is always time.  nature takes 3 or 4 months to rebuild its strength right below the surface and then one day in april, all of winter’s silence is replaced by millions of small expressions of new life. 

i’m ready for a little quiet.  i’m ready to focus.  i’m ready to rebuild.  

for me, this winter will mark the beginning of the manifestation of a long-standing dream.  the best part is that in the midst of the jumble of humanity in this city, i’ve found others with this same dream and in the past few months we’ve built and built and tonight is the first celebration of the project at hand.  when i’m in that space surrounded by people so in love with the same idea, i feel completely and utterly at rest. 

i’m excited about a lot of things right now.  and since there are no trees to climb or tennis games to be played or bike rides to the beach to make, i am free to be undistracted for the first time in months.  i’m thinking that a nice quiet house this weekend will be the perfect setting to take the first steps toward allowing my heart to rest.  i’ve done a lot of soul-searching on this west coast adventure, and i’m nowhere near finished. 

i am a writer and a seamstress and a rider of bicycles and a lover of songs and a recluse and a reader and a chef and a creator and a decorator and yet none of these things are who i am.  i’ve often confused people with their simple definitions but these things are nothing more than the outward expressions of the self.  we try to fit into categories because that’s easier than truly learning to know ourselves and to examine even our most despicable motives. 

we are strange animals, to be sure. 

it’s still raining and i don’t even mind.  even the smell of wet pavement makes me feel at home.  i’m at home.

love, LR