I’m on my way

Well I’m on my way
I don’t know where I’m going
I’m on my way I’m taking my time
But I don’t know where
-Paul Simon

Actually, it’s a bit better than that. I’m not lost. I do know my destination it’s just that as I set off on this next stage of the journey what I can’t know is how it’s gonna play out. So, the only reason that quote is starting us off here is because that is what is currently playing on pandora and if you know anything about me, I write from the moment.

And, in this moment, I sit at my kitchen counter, candle burning, Ollie snoring, vetiver and neroli in the diffuser and scramble to get something posted in the next 20 minutes. Part of the reason I am running late is that yesterday my next-door neighbor died. Her funeral was this morning.

(Weirdly, the day after tomorrow I drive to the Berkshires for a wedding).

Yeah, life.

My neighbor was two years younger than me. She leaves behind her wife and their little boy. The service this morning was honestly one of the most beautiful ceremonies I have ever attended– funeral or otherwise. The synagogue is large and yet, it was packed full. Alice (the neighbor on the other side of my house) and I walked over to the synagogue together. It was sunny, but chill. As we crossed through the streets other neighbors and friends joined, until I was part of an impromptu procession walking slowly under the canopy of tree branches hanging on to the last of their leaves.

One song that was sung began with these words:

Kind friends all gathered ’round, there’s something I would say:
That what brings us together here has blessed us all today.
Love has made a circle that holds us all inside;
Where strangers are as family, loneliness can’t hide.

You must give yourself to love if love is what you’re after;
Open up your hearts to the tears and laughter,
And give yourself to love, give yourself to love.

Does it seem kind of bizarre to anyone else that the subject of my last four posts has been death?

Yeah, me too.

My life has been brimming over with so much beauty, goodness and light and none of that has been recorded here.
More incentive to get back in here and try to capture a bit of that because I just would never remember any of it if I didn’t write it down.

This month is also nearly the end of a full year online workshop I have been running since January that has got me deep into my core truths and living from that center. I’m going to be a bit sad when it wraps up in December, but I am also ready for the new space that will be opening up for me and I am gonna try like hell not to let it fill right back up as I am wont to do. There are just so many things I want to do and people I want to spend time with– but I have to keep coming back to my number one priority which is lots and lots of time alone for writing, meditation and creative play.

You might think I got all kinds of sad when I passed the torch to Meg last September, but you would be wrong. First, because Meg is gonna rock it so big time and I am really interested to see all the ways she is going to grow Squam with all sorts of programs and ideas that I never did. Second, because– hell yes– let the next chapter begin. Although, you gotta admit– if I was writing this as a novel– beginning a new chapter with both a funeral and a wedding seems a bit de trop, non?

Below is a photograph Amy Gretchen snapped of me in the middle of my last workday as retreat organizer. I love this silly candid so much because it captures pretty much everything. Jumping in and out of my car a thousand times a day is precisely how I navigated the last ten years as well as the ever present: white sneakers, mala bracelets, talisman necklace, messy hair, no make-up, water bottle, arms full of crap and yet room for an ice cream cone– and? Smiling all the way through.

bisous, Elizabeth

photos of leaves, me + Ollie thx to Forrest Elliott