Leaving Heaven's Hard To Do

I can't seem to get started writing this morning. I've done two loads of wash, straightened everything in sight and am sitting down for the second time to see if my mind will center itself. Maybe the problem comes from yesterday, at least it seems that way because I had a very restless night. If I could unscrew the top of my head and dump the gremlins running around and behaving badly, maybe that would help. I know you've been here, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to read about it, unless you think I'm going to find my way out of this which isn't at all clear to me just now. If I stopped now, my morning prayer would be, "H....E....L....P....!"

Yesterday we walked into our mountain cabin. You can google it: Silver Lake off Highway 88 in Northern California. It's south of Lake Tahoe in the gorgeous El Dorado National Forest. Our cabin is right on the lake at 7200 feet elevation. We had a report that we had a huge dump of snow on our deck and that the lake was still frozen. When we drove to the top of the hill for our first glimpse, we were overjoyed to see the lake had thawed. As we walked the 3/4 mile to our cabin, alternately through snow fields and bare road, we speculated about its state and found much much less snow than we anticipated and no snow damage. We so eagerly anticipate our first trip each spring. If we were younger, we would run around in circles just like Gracie, our labradoodle, eating snow, barking, running ahead, sniffing, sniffing. We looked at each other and said, "This is heaven."

We bought our cabin 25 years ago. I'd had an unexpected surgery and careened into the wall that has written on it, "Life will change when you least expect it." I didn't know what I wanted to do then, but I knew it was important to pay attention to clues. When a friend and I went on a camping trip and stopped off at Silver Lake, I felt as though I had come home. And so it has always been ever after. Our children were teenagers when we bought the cabin, and now my grandchildren are loving it. It's my dream come true. It's the place my husband and I get along the very best. It's a place of healing and restoration for everyone who visits.

It's hard to leave heaven and come home to your everyday self with your everyday needs and the everyday house to clean and food to buy and errands to run and a blog you really do want to write, but you're feeling dry. It's hard to come down from a high point. I can remember conferences I'd come home from too jazzed to calm down. And so it is with art and writing now. There are so many things I want to do and I think I'm afraid I won't get to do it all. Now that's another blog.

Baruch ata adonai...thank you so much for helping me know what is great and wonderful in my great and wonderful life. I do have this fear that I won't have time to do all I want to do, not just this day, but in my life. I'm not sure what is bringing this to the fore. Perhaps you'll help me figure it out. My life is wonderful right now. Thank you for pointing that out to me. Thank you for telling me that this moment is all I have anyhow. Thank you for telling me to get real and stop worrying about not having enough time. And now, yes, thank you for telling me I've written quite enough! Amen