As I pulled away on Friday morning, I felt this immense relief – as if the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders, a weight I hadn’t entirely realized I’d been carrying.

With four days and the open road in front of me, I felt free, full of hope and possibility.  With each mile more down the road, I felt the distance growing between this old life that was no longer working and this new life I still needed to create.  It was time for me to mold and shape that new life – to see the world as a blank canvas and me the artist in control of the palette.

I just didn’t know where to begin.  Or how.  Truth be told, maybe I was still struggling with why.  The only thing I knew for sure was that it needed to start with stillness.  I needed to quiet my heart and my mind so that I could see the possibilities and the opportunities when they presented themselves.

It seems crazy to me that the weekend ended with, well, an ending, when all along I had seen it as a beginning.

`
I went for the most incredible walk the other day. I took a wrong turn and suddenly there I was, at this place that was so familiar and comforting. Without really thinking about it, I turned in, parked my car, and found myself wandering these trails I had been down so many times before.

At first, it was nostalgia that carried me into the woods, the memory of Andrew toddling up ahead, squatting down on little legs to collect leaves and touch the mushrooms. It filled my heart with such joy to remember that time, when life took on a fullness and a richness I never could have imagined before he came into my life.

I came to a place where the path split, and thinking of Robert Frost (the dork that I am), I chose the path less travelled. Then it was the sheer joy of discovery that urged me forward – each turn a new possibility. The woods around me were teaming with life, a steady rhythm and tranquility that I found very reassuring.

Everywhere I looked I saw life – life, and death, and rebirth. This great endless cycle of life. I saw trees that grew crooked, bent to reach for the sun, trees that grew sideways, even one that grew in a circle. It was a great reminder to me of how resilient life is – how it will always fight to find a way. And somehow I knew that I would be all right, whatever the future holds.

I walked until I found a spot nestled among the trees that seemed as if it had been made just for me. The water was so calm, a perfect mirror of the stillness around me. The canopy of trees was my shelter and protection, and as the wind blew through them, it filled my heart with peace. I wish I could have stayed lost in that perfect moment.

But as I pointed out, life finds a way of moving on. So much has happened in the hours that have passed since then. I find myself sitting here at Starbuck’s willing time to turn back to find that peace and stillness once again and hold it in my heart, to care for it tenderly and nurture it till it grows into something strong and beautiful that remains with me.