A birthday.

There have been wildflowers everywhere along the way on this journey. And they nod and greet one another and me, an undulation of color on every hillside. Purple lupine, orange poppies, and every kind of tiny yellow flower. There were flowers along driftwood beaches in Victoria, flowers in the forest in California, flowers in every meadow or field.

And, like wildflowers, small kindnesses from people I have met. The security officer who watched my things so I could use the bathroom. The bus driver who made the experience of breaking down on our Greyhound bus and sitting in a McDonald's for four hours like a Breakfast Club situation, where we all knew each other and understood each other by the end of our McDonald's detention. (She got on the phone and demanded that Greyhound pay for food for us. "I take care of my people! You need to help my people!") The coffee shop worker who asked if I had noticed the mountains that day. ("Yes!" I said. "I could barely believe them.") And my parents and friends, of course, caring for me in a way that makes me worried that I'll be spoiled for my real life.

I lost a post yesterday. Of all the things, losing something I've written is an event that can turn me back into a six-year-old child. I've been realizing just how strongly writing grounds me, that without it, experiences don't feel real. I'm not sure that I feel real. But that piece was just a note to the wind. And losing it doesn't mean that I have disappeared. No need to panic. I lost some words, that's all. These are the things I tell myself.

I had a birthday, and I spent a lot of it on a ferry and in a car and on another ferry, on my way to visit dear friends, Dori and Chad. I left the home of my parents, who nourished me and celebrated with me, and arrived into the arms of my friends, who danced around my car and took me out for dinner, more eating, more fun. I had two birthday dinners with people I love and miss every day. I couldn't feel more blessed. 

On the ferry, the water sparkled with a million lights. The ocean seemed to go forever, and I wanted to be there, on that grey line, barely visible on the horizon. It looked like peace. I felt that I had never been anywhere more beautiful.

I thought about turning thirty-seven and about being alive on the earth. About the ways that I'm changing, the ways grief changed me this last year. How I have had to force myself to be hopeful in things that I might have easily found hope, before. 

I thought about the limits I am learning about myself. How life leads us toward humility. How I can fail as a friend, a mother, a wife. I find it hard to be nuanced, but my friend Leaf told me that it is possible to be a good friend and do hurtful things, to be a good mother and make mistakes that you wish you could take back. It is possible, as people, to be both good and bad. I find this hard to believe. 

Looking at that water, I wished I could be a whale. A big, motherly humpback whale. I know I could be a good one. I would sing the saddest, longest songs, and the other whales would like me, I just know it. "How cold and sad her songs are," they would think. "Like dark water, the deepest places."  Sometimes I could go to the surface, and get to the place where the water shines with light. (Though singing good sad whale songs is not always the most desirable trait when you are the mother of many kids and maybe need to be a little more dolphin-like.)

How we are loved! Why do we even get to have beautiful things like the ocean and the sky? Because we are loved. I am learning to understand nuance, and also living in the moment. Receiving every gift, not letting them slide by. This was something Ian and Chinua talked a lot of about, and I'm learning from them. (I'm thinking about Ian a lot because I've dreamed about him often since arriving back in North America. In my last dream, he was still alive, though we knew he was sick, and he and Christy were renewing their wedding vows. He gave me a big hug, and it all felt very, very real.)

I thought about work, and art, and writing. Life is good when there is writing to do. All the days of sitting down and writing ahead of me... wow.

I thought about motherhood. I've been meditating on service lately, on the beauty of offering devotion to God through serving. Motherhood is a deep kind of serving. There are more ways of being a mother than having children of your own, too. Nourishing, nurturing, encouraging things and people into the world. And I just spent time with my own mother, and she cooked for me and we sat and talked and that was a kind of nurturing that I felt. I'm thankful for the ways motherhood has changed me, and the ways that being a mother makes service imperative to me, to all of us. 

I thought about my kids, and how they make me laugh, how rich they make life. And my community. And all the gifts. And this trip, the privilege of meeting so many people, sharing things I love with them, being on a pilgrimage, getting inspired. That ferry, on my birthday, was a nearly perfect place to be.