love is a direction...

Soft shoe meandering tonight after a week swarmed by the buzzing energy of meaningful connections.  Beautiful, heartwarming, across the waters, fingertip lightening connections.  Front and centre, within my reach, embracing arms connections.  Over the phone, face to face, smiling eye recognition.  

Affirmation from voices, from looks, from shared stories..... texting flirts.  Texting facts.  Texting observations, feelings..... Humans expressing stress.  Fear. Delight. Gratitude.  Humans responding to my request for help with open arms, with encouragement.  Humility.  Me responding to someone else's needs.  Gratitude and humility.  

We help each other.  Its the best we can offer.  Love directing.

I held a newborn this week.  Cuddly little sleepyhead in caterpillar purple.  Sigh.  Time stopped as I inhaled the sweetness of her tiny being. 

Hips groove to a reflective tempo tonight.  Jazzed up salsa with feathery drum touches filters through the airwaves to surround me in upbeat momentum.  Not like a rave.  More like a spirit that moves its limbs like the body suit of a cat awakening.  High notes bleeding into the nostalgic earth.  It makes me feel grounded.  Barefoot on cool pine floors.....

I watched my children cocooned in their deep sleep..... burrowed under favourite covers.  Dreaming their own colours.  Their own beat.  Completely safe.  Utterly relaxed.  Sigh.  

I love late night radio..........  with its static touches from far off sounds beyond the woods.  Down a well travelled road.  Along the winding river darkened by a starless sky.  Settled under streetlamps moistened by raindrops.  Never ending raindrops....  It brings music that shares its own stories from a musician's zone flow.  I can picture them completely immersed in creating emotion from their strings..... making them laugh, cry, whine....... the human and the instrument blending together emerging from a studio....... from one microphone outward to reach my ears.  Absorbing it......

I listened to young love conflictions.  New complications.  Big flooding feelings and what to do about them.  His own Mom was away.  On the week he REALLY wanted her guidance.  I replaced his Mom for a short time.  He needed to tell me how happy he is to be with the girl of his dreams........ but what to do about the best friend who likes her too?  What to do?  I listened.  I asked......... tell me what you think you should do.  What do you think you're Mom would say?  He smiled......... and thought and remembered other coversations with his gentle soul Mom.  "Do what is right...."  she would've said........ Then, he knew how he would handle the conflictions.........

"Do you know what is right to do?"   It all depends.  On the complications  and the situation .......  

I'm tired.  Good tired.  Deep rooted gladness fatigue right down into the tips of my soaken soul.  

It wasn't all gladness.  This week.  No.  Sometimes it felt like I was pushing heavy air up a hill.  Sometimes, it felt like I was going to burst out of a tear bubble and land flat on my sorry ass.  Sometimes, all I could do was put one foot in front of the other.  Sometimes, I allowed someone to play hopscotch on my heart.  No soft shoe hopscotch. Heavy shoes.  It hurt.  It was confusing.......  It triggered my feelings of rejection to a point where I thought I'd be swallowed up again. 

Then, something would happen to turn the rain clouds upside down.  

Like a reunion with someone I can shed inhibitions.... let go of the roles, the masks........ escape for a while.  

Like meeting a new friend who burst into my life like a rainbow of blending personalities.  We only talked for a short while, as we shook our heads wondering how the heck we had never met before.  So much in common.  

Like watching my friend cross the finish line after running her very first 1/2 marathon on sore sore feet and a wonky muscle in her back.  She bested her time by a whomping amount.  How bursting proud I was of her overcoming so many personal and winter weather obstacles to be able to run with her head held high and all of us watching her achieve this goal.  She's now soaking her feet in Rome on a trip with her Mom.  The first time they've ever been able to get away together just the two of them. 

Like seeing the pre-midterm nervousness zip through my daughter's whole body only to see her hours later relieved that all of her hard work paid off.  Her smile melts my heart.  Her hugs melt me too.  A month from now, she'll be graduation from high school and heading off to camp for the summer.  Bittersweet life forging ahead.....

Like seeing my son........ with the crackling voice galoomp into the kitchen with new long legs raring to share a few funny stories from his day............... head in the cupboards looking for crackers!  His delight peaked too when he found out that the trip to Toronto next week is now on the agenda.   My 13 year old off on an independent adventure.  Am I ready?  He is.  I am. Maybe.

Like accomplishing the practical things around here.   Painting my bathroom, even hanging up the heavy mirror on my own without breaking it!  A guy named Shirley fixed my lawn mower and gave me shit for not properly storing it for the long winter!  Ooops!  Thanks Shirley.  Next week, a big hearted man named Edgar will fix my front steps.  It's all happening........... so often this spring I've been overwhelmed by these practical things.  Now, I see progress......... Upside down clouds! 

Like having a friend lending me her black heels to wear to a fancy dress ballet gala at the last minute so I didn't look like a flat footed underdressed fool beside my man in his tuxedo.  She is always one phone call away.  Just up the hill.  My angel.  

The music is becoming more ethereal, more experimental as the night lingers on.......... as my thoughts and feelings float down into my soft shoes......

And I remember that today, a stranger man my age called me Kiddo! He said......... " you helped out a lot Kiddo...."  after I tried to lighten up his anxious moment of having all of his groceries come tumbling out of the back of his SUV by informing him that he had just been struck by the luck of Friday the 13th!  

Kiddo!  I patted him on his sleeve and wished him a good rest of the day!  Our eyes met.  We smiled.  Then drove off in our own direction.  

Did you know that love is a direction?  Did you know that you can choose that direction?  You just have to put it out there.  

This week, I took a risk or two.  I put it out there.  And what came back?  Well, you guess.  It was beautiful.  So marvellous that I stand here tonight in my soft shoes smiling a sense of gladness and fatigue, looking forward to crawling under my own favourite covers and letting the dreams find this young little Kiddo. 

Thank you to everyone who made my week so fulfilling, challenging, loving, encouraging and important to me and for allowing me to truly begin to put my once quiet thoughts and plans "out there....."  I have miles to go before I sleep. Tonight though, I take a break ......... and soft shoe my little tushie to bed.