impressions &the impressionable

inparticulr:

he’s rather shy in person.. 

plans plans plans and plane tickets for deep water soloing in Mallorca, July 2012. Oh my. Better start training.

notes on 23 years

happiness is:

- all the seeds I have planted just by throwing my hands out

- getting a little bit stronger; running a little bit longer

- hunger; anticipation

- growth and struggle

- what persists between us despite what could not

When I look at your faces back in our pastoral womb, back against the trees settled so wisely serene on those soft hills, back on the grass littered early-morning with red cups and the echo of laughter from last night—when I look at us now, it is almost difficult to remember that we had left at all.

But clearly, things have changed. Yours are not the faces of last year, so frantically happy in the moment to gulp down every last drop, to ignore the fear at the bottom of every empty bottle. Yours are not the faces of youth unbridled by their own youth.

We come back to this place with new eyes and stronger smiles to recognize the strange and beautiful and magical space we’ve shared and dusted our stories onto. I’m thinking about all of the things that have happened between Founder’s day of this year and last year. How bizarre and frightening, how many risks we have taken, how we have fallen down on our sea legs, and how we have learned new ways of walking. How it has only been a year. How many years there are ahead. 

How lucky we are to continue to have each other.

There are questions I want to lay out for you. I want to set them down quietly and gently and firmly like the way you let my back press against my bed. I want to give breath to all the nervous and deflated words that I keep tucked away as our eyelashes flutter closed. I want to see what will stay grounded and what may take flight.