August 1st marked a year since the movers came, packed up our Nebraska belongings and we piled in the van. A year ago we sat outside in the hot August air watching the guys load the truck. We ate our lunch on the concrete floor of the yet to be finished basement in the house on Colorado Street making sandwiches out of cooler and using paper towels as plates escaping the heat and passing the chips.
And now it’s been a year. One year of big change, big fear, big loneliness and big leaps. Did I ever imagine I would have Jersey plates? Not at all. Did I ever think we’d find ourselves here at this time in this life like we are? Nope.
And here we are. New everything. How do I feel when I think about how I get to ride a train into New York City whenever I want and I kinda know my way around now and I kinda know where stuff is and I can dash on back to Penn Station and do the funny thing where all the Jersey transit riders hover round the train departures board like cheetahs stalking prey and then pounce with a mad dash to the train track once it flashes up on the board cuz you’ve only got about three minutes before that thing leaves the station? How much do I love that I get to do that? How much do I love that buzz and excitement then quiet ride to the transit station then 15 minutes back home? I can’t believe that’s my life. I can’t believe I get to do that. And then what if I told you I invited my NY girlfriends all to meet up on my birthday for fancy drinks at the Algonquin and they are magical beautiful powerful inspiring women and now we meet up on the regular? Well that’s just gravy.
And we get to have our old friend Martin over for dinner and we get to see our old friends Josh and Amie so much more. And we walk the the tow path by the river and we hike up into the woods and we spend the day at the ocean and we visit New Jersey colleges with my son who’s going to be senior and football starts next week? August First feels pretty important. Oh and also we saw two cars die within our first New Jersey year to really put a fine point on newness. Out with the old…
By next August First I hope to get to know more people. By next August first I think I’ll be playing lots more music. This August first, I’m proud of our family and what we’ve learned, how close we’ve grown, what adventures we’ve shared together.
August 2nd.
And August 2nd is important because I graduated from Martha Beck’s Wayfinder Life Coach Training. It’s been something I’ve been working on since September. Weekly classes, weekly assignments, practice coaching, reading up, watching back, working on it. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for years and with this new start, I figured, now was the time to do it.
I’m so glad I did. And I can’t believe it’s come to an end (kinda). You all probably know how much coaching changed my life when I started working with a coach back in 2018 and I still think coaching is changing my life even now and getting trained and certified to help other people get out of frustration and blocks like the kind I was in is so so important to me. It took guts to take that big leap, making that kind of investment, deepening my commitment to the practice and, wow, it’s been a powerful year! And I did it! I did the thing I’ve been dreaming of doing for years! It’s worthy of celebration.
At one point, Martha, in our final class together, told us to look around our room where we were and pick up something precious to us. Something precious to us that, at one point, we couldn’t have imagined would be ours. I looked around my study and saw my guitar. My beautiful Gibson LG-2 guitar and picked it up. She said, “Just hold it and remember the moment you got it and what it felt like to have your dream become reality.” And I held my guitar and remembered how long I dreamt of that exact make and model and how I knew the moment I played that guitar that that was the dream guitar. I remembered how often I would search the internet to look at it, see if it was on sale, find models that I might buy and then go back to the real world. I remembered how the decision to finally buy it was terrifying and exactly right when it was clear to me I could put it off forever or I could just buy that guitar and I took the chance. And I remembered getting it and having it really be mine and how precious and beautiful it was to me then and how precious and beautiful it is to me now and I got a little teary.
That feeling of a prized possession. Your prized possession- the love of your beloved, the child you adore, your mother’s best china, your dad’s old tackle box, your college diploma hanging up on the wall that tells a story stretching back generations perhaps. That moment when the richness of life and its layers and its heart all come flooding back to you to remind you it’s working. It’s moving.
What’s working? What’s moving?
I’d say the Holy Spirit hovering over these burning waters. I’d say the bravery of the soul to stretch and extend and pursue because some unknown voice calls and we respond. Perhaps Love capital L as in LORD. Love for this one life and the faint spark of a notion that in our stardust-like insignificance we can shift the sands of time in small moves and motions such that mountains fall into the sea and new days appear for unknown kin hundreds of years from now because we loved deeply, because we shared generously, we because we feared not and we poured out our gifts and OUR love and OUR presence as though we just knew we would never run dry.