Starting where I am.

(written 3/2016).  As I've transitioned from life in the beautiful Ridge & Valley ecoprovince of Central Pennsylvania to living at this urban ledge at the falls of the James River, where the rolling Piedmont flattens into the Tidewater zone of Virginia, a kind colleague commented, "you really should be blogging".  When she said this, I thought, "by all means, yes, I should be sharing this with others."  I now realize it is for my own sake, perhaps my emotional existence, that I need to be writing - to dig in  deeper and find voice and agency.

Falls on the James River. Belle Island to the left.

Writing has been important to me, but I've pathologically avoided it for personal reflection  for too long and with ever mounting angst.  My avoidance is due partly to the piles of professional writing that I've allowed to grow for so long.  How do I justify the time to blog when I've not made the professional writing a priority?  The other part of avoidance?  Possibly fear.  Fear of vulnerability and revelation of depths I'm not ready to whisper, much less convert into B&W evidence.

I'm not going to live at this congested crossroad any longer.  I am now choosing to write this story as it unfolds and explore these learnings.  I hope to do so with increasing honesty as I let go of the urge to communicate as if I have already gained a clear lens for understanding.  The tea bag tab wisdom, "Read to learn.  Write to understand.  Teach to master" comes to mind.  So to understand means that I write it, and I glean understanding through the process.  I've learned more about what it means to be a white woman in the last three months than possibly the 53 years and 11 months that proceeded it.  But I sure don't understand it.  It's the drilling down to understand and embrace and truly embody what I'm learning that I struggle with. 

A few nights ago, I dreamed that I was surrounded by many fully pregnant people.  I looked down to discover I too was pregnant -  only to realize that somehow, I had come to term without once asking myself "why haven't I felt the baby move?"  This transition to Richmond Hill has been wrought with soul-wrenching change, but is the baby moving?

On the Pennsylvania side, the leaving has been hard and long, beginning with the goodbyes with a beloved faith community in fall 2015.  My partner reminds me, "remember, you felt this sense of loss when we left Nashville 22 years ago."  I can't recall that this is a pattern of letting go.  I do know that we've said goodbye to: 

• amazing humans, friends who helped raise our children and nurture our marriage,
• a beloved home where the compost pile holds the archeological layers of our lives, tiny matchbox cars and sand from 1990s era playtime, garlic mustard eradication from the early 2000s, vegetable and fruit peelings from the Village Acres CSA years... all these rich, organic gifts of my adult life as a mother-partner-planter-friend are piled and  decomposing, there in the compost in Pennsylvania; 
• deciduous forests, limestone streams, ancient trails traversing ancient mountains, Scotia Barrens, night sounds of migrating amphibians.  

On the RVA side, we have been welcomed, embraced.  Kindness abounds as we shift from the conventional living of a single-family household to community-based living, that holds gifts and challenges that I'm not prepared to enumerate at this sitting.

Wait.  Starting where I am.  This is what I must do. Perhaps I'll notice the baby moving.