Semester break

I type this post as I am flying east into the darkness, leaving three hours and the afternoon far behind me. By the time I land at Newark, it will be way past suppertime.

It’s hard to fathom that four months have past since I’ve been on the East Coast. I so clearly remember swallowing back my tears last August, as I said goodbye to Stephen on the San Francisco train and made my way to Berkeley by myself.

And if feels strange that I will be separated from my new life, and touching edges with the old for some five weeks to come. I look forward to waking to my morning cup of coffee that Stephen will bring to me. I look forward to experiencing myself as changed, in the familiarity of my home.

I pray that I will be able to keep my self-focus. I pray that I will be able to experience my days as expansive and my heart connected to my spiritual pursuits. I am clear that I do not want to re-inhabit my busyness and self-inflicted obsession with responsibilities beyond my relationship with my living.

Still, there are things that I need to accomplish during this semester break and I will be diligent and happy to do them. I have to prepare the end-of-year finances for the newspaper’s accountant. I have to prepare The River Reporter’s entry for the New York Press Association's Better Newspaper Contest. And I have to be available to anyone who wants to meet with me.

I will visit with friends, share a Christmas and New Year’s holiday, get started on next semester's reading, visit a new grandchild in Florida and continue to find myself on retreat, connected and separate, to every piece of my life that I care about.

The sky has now gone dark. The sun still shines far away in the west. Waiting, perhaps, for me to return and begin again.

For now, I welcome the darkness and the rest that it offers.