August 14, 2023

What a slag I’ve been with this daily writing. My excuse was rewriting my book and whittling it down by about 4,00 words. Not everything I pulled from the manuscript was terrible, the lion share just didn’t fit the arc. After all that wailing and gnashing of teeth, a break from my busy thoughts was needed.

This fragment was pulled from a messy chapter written about six months ago.

Wandering down the road through the prairie just the other day, I listened to a podcaster who left me wishing I could recoup the thousands of dollars I’ve spent on therapy: “You have to face your triggers to heal them.” The word“trigger” makes me cringe my old lady shoulders. It’s overused and often misused for dramatic intent but sometimes it’s the best fit. And that phrase made me stop on the road in the middle of the sunny afternoon so I could listen to that bit again.

I paused the playback and tapped it back 45 seconds to hear the lilting young voice of an author my kids’ age school me hard on a fact of life. I watched a couple of birds flying overhead and realized the pandemic years mostly at home forced me to face the nasty bullshit I heaped on myself or had heaped over me. And I doubted I would have ever confronted it if my life had gone according to my plan which didn’t include a global public health emergency or living on the ranch full time. Two years mostly at home in the middle of nowhere gave me the insight Proust gained a century ago: Destinations are not different or novel places but a novel way of seeing oneself. I think this different way of seeing is the shortest path to an open heart. I grasped this idea a quarter mile from home. I’m facing those things that prompt me to anger, insecurity, and anxiety. I’m even forgiving them so I can let them go. Standing in the middle of the road, I knew I had let all that stuff go. The fear, pain, regret, and grief led to this instant of forgiveness and letting go. I turned in place taking in the vast sky with the scattered whimsical clouds casting shadows over the grasslands and repeated a single word. “home".