Day off

Woke up to a glorious morning of not having to get up early, been wanting to sleep in for a while now, looking forward to it.  Still, got up and walked over to the newly re-opened coffee shop down the street to write for a while, and then ate breakfast as well, so that I could read more of the therapy book: I really want to do the work.

I took the day off because I needed a day of good weather to clean up the garden, almost noon, and have yet to go over, but will.  They have to be ready for winter by the end of the month.  And it will be nice to spend part of the day outside.

Went to this "welcome home" potluck last night, for people who'd volunteered or walked/cycled, etc., in Spain over the past year.  Our table connected so well that we pretty much got kicked out at the end of the evening, because we were all still so engaged in conversation.  Got a ride home, too.  It's funny, there was a list of questions at every table to guide conversation, but as I said to someone in the car, you get kinda' use to opening up and connecting with strangers while traveling, that in a group of people who experienced the same thing, it's easy to fall back into the groove.

And part of the writing this morning was still trying to process the month in Spain, last spring.  It was a little over a year ago that I felt the push/direction to go back.  And since it felt so certain at the time, I still am trying to figure out why that felt so urgent, what happened there that I needed to experience?  Maybe it hasn't entirely played out yet.  There was that whole lack of status thing, which is part of it, I think.  And because I spent so much time alone during that month, I wrote a lot, which is something I wanted to do.  And yet, for months I've had a block about processing it, or even looking at what I wrote.  Not sure why.  Maybe I just need a framework, a narrative arc.  I had a long conversation about it with a friend over the weekend (because she asked), and with the woman sitting next to me last night, but have yet to be able to share anything with my family, really, and I'd like to.  It's just hard to explain, everyone that's gone and done it understands, book after book people come to the same conclusions...this is part of the reason for the potluck, to have someone else to process with.  In some ways, nothing at all happened on this trip (and in that nothingness, something also life-shifting), and yet, it's harder to talk about than all the other ones.  Curious, that.