faith

grief paced like tides.

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Once again, I do not know where to begin. I have been away from the depth of this daily writing ritual for too long. Even just a few days of writing absence (replaced by short posts) makes me feel upside down and asunder. I’ve spent the past several days simply holding out for a quiet space to rest in. Traveling and Miami Beach did not offer such luxuries. There were other gifts, but time and space to give myself over to the untangling of grief was not one of them.

I am relieved to be far away from the commotion and noise of Miami. To witness my friend, Kristine, achieve such high artistic success, that is why I was there. To spend an afternoon alone at Art Basel, led by Carl through a maze of some of the most powerful artwork I have ever seen, that might have been the other reason I was there. Moved by art in ways that I have never been moved before. I was stunned into deepest silence, an inner place, at moments causing heavy orb-like tears to roll down my face. I will not forget that. It changed me, as though I were some kind of soft rock being so gently sculpted. And possibly, there are even other reasons that I was led to Miami Beach, reasons that I do not yet know or even understand.

Yesterday I picked up a rental car and got outta there. It felt good to drive–windows open–through a complicated urban jungle of Miami roads and freeways. But after awhile, even that became too much. I’m too sensitive for such loudness and movement right now. Even the air traffic flew too low and loud. Nothing felt real, everything manmade. Finally, finally, finally…the landscape gave way to a gentler kind of jungle. One made of greens and blues, golden yellows and cocoa colored browns, moss and palms, sea oaks and sunset. I found dirt roads, unexpected pastures of horses and cows, orange groves and overgrown gardens.

The roads led me all the way to a sugary sweet cottage appropriately called the Heart Bean House. On it’s front porch, in a white rocking chair, sat my dear friend, Cynthia, waiting for me. I don’t even know if we said hi, but what I do remember is that I got out of the car and she wrapped her arms around me, her hand so tenderly holding the back of my head like a small child’s, and I let myself cry in her arms until the Christmas lights adorning her house became remarkably bleary and bright.

We gathered ourselves and then walked the block and a half down to the ocean to watch the moonrise. Dear God. The heart is such a small vessel in comparison to a full moon just beginning its ascent over such a salty sea. I felt peace. Utterly. The ocean, so full that it seemed a miracle that it didn’t just completely overflow. And it did. We walked along the moon bright beach for a long time, until the incoming tide began washing all the way up to our legs. A mysterious lunar pattern of waves…coming in just a little higher each time, then rushing back towards the moon with dizzying speed. The motion, much like Carl’s current presence of spirit and, at the same time, so similar to his swift exit from this earthly place. An ebb and flow. The tide, a rhythm that simultaneously, contrastively buoys and then steals the ground out from underneath. We walked and, as we did, I accepted this motion for what it is. It is what it is. I felt peaceful. Somehow held by something uncontainable. How that much salt-swelled water doesn’t just spill over its edges is a terrific wonder. How I (or any of us) survive this much love and loss is the greatest mystery I’ve ever experienced.

There are a certain kind of tears that I have been avoiding. I have mentioned this several times and, until losing Carl, I did not know there could be such an extravagant difference between the tears of profound grief and those that reach even deeper. You see, I have done my fair share of crying. I understand the great need for letting grief flow through me. So that I can heal. So that I can experience this fully. So that I might be made whole, both now and moving forward. But there is a certain place of tears that I have not been ready for. They will come. It’s unavoidable. But the tears that I flounder to prepare myself for, the tears that I sometimes must avoid…they are a place of God. They are the tears that reach all the way to heaven. They are a place of such extreme depth and BIGNESS that only angels can bear the expansiveness of it. It is the tears of great Love. I am too frail for this. Surely, going there will break me. To cry from that place is to experience God. Completely. It is no wonder that it’s written:

“You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live.” ~Exodus 33:20

And so my grief is paced like the tides. My tears come often, sometimes in dry wracking sobs and other times in fat watery drops. And then there are those moments that I just need to bolster myself to the weight or numbness of things, doing whatever it takes to hold myself to some form of steady. Other times I smile or talk, eat or even walk in a way that resembles something of a normal person. Teetering somewhere between vastness and being held, day and night, time and space, sun and moon, heaven and earth, ebb and flow.

The photo is one that I took last night. An outrushing tide. My heart being sucked out to sea, but also an old friend at my side.

And so we make our way, however precariously. My dearest Carl, I love you. Thank you for bringing me so close to God.

{originally published Dec 7, 2014}

sending songs.

I haven’t listened to music since Carl died. Or, at least, very, very little of it. It’s too painful. Music is how we used to do a lot of communicating and Carl always had a way of sending me the best songs when I needed them the most. This morning I am laying on a bright orange couch in Carl’s old and worn out flannel shirt, overlooking the ocean and being caressed by its comforting breeze. For the first time since his passing I decided to turn on Pandora. Before I had a chance to even choose a station, this is what started playing. Thank you, baby. That’s exactly the song I needed today. My toe started tapping and a smile stole across my face. Even now…he’s still sending me the most perfect songs at just the perfect time.

“Live And Die”

All it will take is
just one moment and
you can say goodbye to
how we had it plannedFear like a habit,
run like a rabbit out and away.
Through the screen door
to the unknown.

And I want to love you and more.
I want to find you and more.
Where do you reside
When you hide? How can I find you?

‘Cause I want to send you and more
I want to tempt you and more
can you tell that I am alive?
Let me prove it.

You and I, we’re the same.
Live and die, we’re the same.
Hear my voice, know my name,
you and I, we’re the same.

Left like a pharaoh,
sing like a sparrow anyway.
Even if there is no land or
love in sight.

We bloom like roses,
leave like Moses out and away.
Through the bitter crowd
to the daylight.

And I want to love you and more.
I want to find you and more.
Can you tell that I am alive?
Let me prove it to ya.

You and I, we’re the same.
Live and die, we’re the same.
You rejoice, I complain,
but you and I, we’re the same.
Live and die, we’re the same.
You and I, we’re the same.
Hear my voice, know my name,
you and I, we’re the same.

And I want to love you and more.
I want to find you and more.
Where do you reside
When you hide? How can I find you?

‘Cause I want to send you and more
I want to tempt you and more.
Can you tell that I am alive?
Let me prove it.

You and I, we’re the same.
Live and die, we’re the same.
You rejoice, I complain,
but you and I, we’re the same.
Live and die, we’re the same.
You and I, we’re the same.
Hear my voice, know my name,
you and I, you and I.

I love you, Carl.

{originally published Dec 5, 2014}

sunlight.

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Carl’s sunrise. Mid-air and halfway to heaven…where there is nothing but Love and LIGHT!

I don’t mean be selfish, but wow, that sunrise felt like it was made just for me!

“On the Way to the Wedding”
To be on the way to the wedding is to honor the great
ring of mystery in which we live. It is to praise the circling movement that is
ours, the ever-growing orbits of our lives. When I look at my life dancing in
the great ring of mystery, I know now that each season will greet me with the
energies I need to transform to make my life and love richer. I know that I
will come around and around on my personal cycles to all that I have lived before,
and no matter how painful or terrible or dark some
of that time was, it is now the rich rock from which I mine the crystal visions
for my healing. ~Schierse Leonard

I love you, Carl.

{originally published Dec 4, 2014}

grace.

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“To be alive is to be broken. And to be broken is to stand in need of grace.” ~Brennan Manning

I’ve been doing a lot of grace seeking these days. It’s become a full-time job. It’s an awful upside down full-time endeavor. The edges of things have begun to fray, a frightening concept if I didn’t have such a deep need to discover what is at the center of all of this. I’m hoping for the impossible. I’m seeking a reason for all of this. I’m not asking WHY Carl died, only God knows the answer to that one, but I am steadfast in wanting my love for Carl, his love of everyone around him, and the pain we all feel in losing him to hold meaning in our lives from here on out. Something real. Something that, someday, I will look up from this vast ocean of grief and realize how it’s brought us all somewhere that we could not have arrived at otherwise. I speak in terms of everyone whose Carl’s life and death has affected, but there is a very deep seed of desire for *something* that is also completely personal. Yet even in this private need I sense a ripple effect that craves to travel well beyond my own self-seeking needs. Whether I want to or not, I keep breathing into this mystery. Or perhaps this mystery keeps breathing into me. I am choosing to not have lost so much for nothing.

Over and over, I travel away and towards this “choosing” on an almost constant basis. I’m unwavering and thoroughly floundering in this commitment, all at once. To find purpose in the unthinkable. I am not at all certain that I’m made of the right material for what this life is asking of me. The details are still too unknown, the pain too palpable, turning these moments of optimism, so easily on its head.

But this strange conviction keeps returning. I fumble with a sense of faith that won’t seem to leave me alone.

Yesterday I went to church with Carl’s sister-in-law, Carmita. I have not gone to a real church since I was in high school, and even that was at the demands of my parents. But when Carl’s new-born niece recently passed away, just two hours old, something shifted inside of me. Carl and I went to the funeral service only two weeks before his own passing. It was beautiful and utterly heartbreaking. Anna Claire’s death gifted me with a knowing that I had found a home in my spirituality, a place within myself that I could count on for comfort, a place to hold me when nothing else made any sense or things seemed to be falling apart. It was the first time in over 30 years that I attended a religious service and was able to find exactly what I needed in it. The pastor read the most beautiful scriptures and then admitted that he didn’t have all the answers. For this reason, I immediately liked him. I told Carl that I wanted to go to that church and he whole-heartedly agreed that I should go with Ervin and Carmita sometime soon. I was (and am) awe-struck that such a tiny person, who had barely breathed into this world, could change the lives of so many, so completely.

Carl and I talked ALL the time. But what I loved most were the spiritual conversations that were weaved into everything we lived or did or tried to plan, everything we experienced or attempted to understand. I can’t even tell you how many times a challenge would arise, making life difficult or causing impatience (a truck would break down, or we would be delayed in seeing each other, or an issue with business or another person would come up, or our plans to move to Alaska would be postponed, or we wouldn’t be able to live together as soon as we wanted to, or…) and every single time, instead of getting hung up on the problem or set-backs, we would both genuinely be amazed and find ourselves saying: “WOW! Isn’t it cool how [something good] happened because [something else] went wrong?!” We got good at seeing how the rearrangements of life’s details kept leading us somewhere better than we could have gotten to if things had gone the way we planned. With each challenge we became closer. With our whole hearts, we trusted that we were being divinely guided–and we let ourselves be guided by that trust, wholly.

I have never fit into a spiritual box of any sort and yet somehow, together, we created this beautiful bridge to a space of shared faith. Carl was a constant source of fresh perspective for me and my spirituality expanded in ways that I find difficult to explain or summarize. We learned so much from each other.

Yesterday, when I went to the church that I had wanted to visit since Anna Claire’s passing. The service began with song after song of good music. I immediately felt Carl’s presence with me. There were guitars and a stand-up bass, a big hand drum and several gorgeous singers. I NEVER sing along (ugh, I hate sing-alongs!), but wow, that music invited breath. I found myself a part of that music in a way that I wasn’t really expecting. I felt Carl standing beside me, holding my hand. In my mind’s eye, we looked at each other and smiled. I felt him thoroughly enjoying the service, too.

The music was wonderful, but the part that really floored me was the scripture. It was the exact same scripture that was read at Carl’s funeral. A synchronistic fluke. I cried. Not for the words, but for the knowledge that, all along, it was meant for me to be there. How could a two hour old baby lead me to such a gift? Somehow these strange synchronicities give me comfort in my own loss. Carmita and I both experienced the service, each in our own way, and I was glad for her presence in my life. If we had known when we first met, nearly a year ago, how deeply we would need to lean on each other, I’m quite certain that we both would have ran for the hills in opposite directions. But instead, there we were, sharing a package of kleenex, somehow helping each other to remember to breath.

In this life, I have given my greatest offering. And that is Carl. I am letting him go (an offering) from my heart to God and, in doing so, I find myself in need of the deepest kind of grace. I am broken.

In writing this, I struggle to bridge that gap between the myriad of beliefs that make up this world and even this circle of readers. This is not about church or religion. It’s about something much more beautiful and profound than any of that.

But, yes, yesterday I went to church. I cried; I found meaning in the music; I felt Carl’s presence and held his hand; I sat next to the woman who, in heart, is now my sister, too; I met beautiful people. And whether in church or outside of it, I find myself pulled over and over and over again by a desire to keep living this life as fully as I had planned to do with Carl.

I do believe that this was always meant to be. Right now I just pray for the strength, confidence, trust and energy to make myself available to whatever it is I’m here for. There’s really not a whole lot of room for doubt or complacency if I’m going to live this out the way I feel I’m intended to.

I love you, Carl Bratlien. I love you, sweet baby, Anna Claire. Thank you for leading me to this view. May grace be with us all.

{originally published Dec 1, 2014}

my sentinel.

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Yesterday I filled the water trough for the horses, a simple job requiring Herculean efforts, a laborious blessing. My two horses, Colorado and Dakota, have a way of dragging me out of the house in a way that nothing else can. The water is on the other side of this 30-some acre property and so that means I need to drag my tired sad self down the horse trail between my cabin to the water spigot and trough near the barn. This, of course, makes the dogs happy. Especially Louie and Ella who are used to going with me and saying hi to all the neighbor dogs in the process. Henry, he has fun, too…but he stays closer to me than he would have in the past. I’ve somehow been adopted by him in ways that I would have never expected. We’ve become each other’s safe zone. Henry, although small, is bit of a renegade, Carl’s perfect match. But despite his toughness, I also see the vulnerability that’s emerged through this experience. He snuggles in tight. He listens to me better than he ever listened to Carl. We keep an eye on each other. We both understand, all too well, the hugeness of what we’ve both lost.

We get to the gate near the barn and are met by 3 of the neighbor dogs, 2 yellow labs and a big strong mutt. Henry jumps into my arms until he’s decided that he’s big enough to outnumber them all. 6 dogs total. Enough to start a gang. They play for awhile, but then I take them back home and return to filling water for the horses. The trough is full. I am empty.

I walk back down the trail through a forest of pines and am a little bit awed by the flatness of everything. Since being in a relationship with Carl, the trail between the barn and cabin had taken on a new life. It had started to SPARKLE. With possibility. With love. With partnership. I’ve never owned horses before. When I took on their care, I really had no clue what I was doing. All I knew is that I loved them and that I needed them as much as they needed me. I’ve been figuring it out along the way, little by little by little, and still am.

But then came Carl and suddenly there was someone in my life who the horses loved as much as me and who loved them as much as I do. Colorado and Dakota fell in love with Carl instantly. They trusted him completely. The realization that I had found the perfect companion in life was, well…astonishing. There was nothing we loved more than schlepping hay bales together. Carl and I spent many a morning, afternoon or evening brushing, loving, feeding, and working with the horses. He was good at it and, together, we were really a good team. It was Carl that finally made the first step to ride Dakota for the first time and then helped me to do the same. She hadn’t been ridden in over 4 years and she responded beautifully. Colorado let us blanket him. We planned on working up to the saddle later. My big, skittish gelding. It was a beautiful accomplishment and he was so pleased with himself, too.

In all that time of our relationship there was an almost other-wordly glow to these woods. I imagined a long life together. I imagined a love-filled, work-filled, outdoors-filled, animal and family-filled life…together. I imagined us, side by side, making even the hardest of physical labor seem like something fun and enjoyable. That’s the kind of person Carl was…and he brought that out in me, too.

But yesterday and, really, every day since Carl’s been gone, these woods haven’t held the same luster. I’m still glad I’m here. These woods, even in their flatness, are still holding me in exactly the way I need to be held. After filling the trough, I walked back home and simply started to weep for the enormity of all these lost daydreams, for the loss of light, for the loss of having someone so capable by my side. Honestly, there are days that I don’t know how I’ll do this on my own. I am walking a precarious trail of faith.

I walked that trail all the way back to my cabin where the horses stood waiting for me. There was nothing left to do but just give up for a moment. I sat down next to Colorado, my back leaning against the tree nearest him. Colorado is the one that rescued me before Carl even came into my life. Surely, he can do it again? And, yes, he does. Every single day. Dakota, too.

I sat and cried into a lackluster forest with Colorado holding vigilance as I did so. He munched on hay and watched me with peacefully attentive eyes, occasionally looking up to take in the world around us. I felt like I could have sat there forever and the horses would not have left my side.

My guardians. They know. They care. They work their magic on me in a way that only sentient creatures know how to do.

Whenever I was having a bad day, Carl always used to tell me to go outside and hang out with the horses. It worked every time. Always. Their saving grace was and is almost annoyingly dependable. The horses don’t necessarily take my pain away, but for now their presence keeps me alive and breathing and moving, sometimes in seemingly exaggerated ways. I had so many crystal clear visions of a life with horses and Carl. I don’t know how to do it without him, but I pray, I pray, I pray that trail of faith I’ve been walking will, someday, become a little less precarious and a whole lot more beautiful.

In the meantime, I have this beauty. Colorado. Standing right in front of me. Catching my tears, letting me lean into the warmth of his strong body, always watching and waiting for me. Until the light someday returns.

I love you, Carl Bratlien. Be with me.

{originally published Nov 29, 2014}

2:34. The only thing missing is 1.

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I took this photo on Wednesday, the moment before I closed the door to Carl’s place for the very last time. We had finished packing. Everything was thoroughly cleaned. The vehicle and trailer were loaded. I asked to be alone for a moment before hitting the long road home.

And so there I was–looking into the sun-drenched living room of Carl’s farmhouse–trying to memorize an entire history of sunlight, wishing for things that would never be, attempting to remember everything that ever was. I picked up my phone to take the photo and, when I looked at it, the time read 2:34pm. I knew it was Carl’s way of letting me know he was with me. 12:34 was our number. If the clock fell on those numbers and either of us noticed, we would send a text simply saying “12:34…I love you!” It made me smile every. single. time. We noticed it so often that it started to seep into lots of other hours, too. After awhile, any hour ending in 34 turned into an ancillary twitter of goodness and love.

This morning, just before sunrise, I had another dream of Carl. The dreams…they have been coming more often now. Some are more difficult than others, but I am grateful for all of them. These dreams feel like moments when Carl’s and my spirit are able to more easily access each other. Other times, they simply feel like grief-stricken conversations with God. Either way, always, for this I am thankful.

This morning’s dream was especially poignant. The cat meowed and I woke up crying. In the dream, we were out west. Carl had been diagnosed with a completely unexpected and quick moving terminal illness. We were all working to get things in order, to get things back to Minnesota. My dad and uncle were there, fixing hitches and trailers. Carl’s people were there taking care of a million details. We were all in a state of shock, a blur of movement and impossible emotions. Carl was trying to get as many things done as possible so that others wouldn’t be left with a mess. I was helping too, but all of a sudden I had a painfully acute and urgent need to talk to Carl. I needed answers to questions while he was still here. He was worried and busy and so I had a hard time getting him to stop long enough to see how desperate I was for him to tell me what I needed to know. But then he stopped. We both stopped. I asked and he answered. And then the grief came. That crushingly deep wave of grief that sometimes comes…and I started to cry. I told him I loved him and I didn’t want him to leave. He wrapped me up in his arms and, together, we both cried from a deep and infinite place, that place made up purely of our souls. The intensity of our sadness and love were the same; our bodies had no beginning or end. We held this embrace for a long, long time and it is from this place that I awoke today.

It feels good to write again. I was afraid that, after the pause I needed to take while in ND, that I might not be able to return to this daily ritual. In its own small way, this writing habit has been saving me.

Last night I took my first bath since all of this happened. The bathtub is my go-to mode of “self-care,” but I have not been able to take one since before Carl’s passing. Never mind that my body has been a tangle of knots and discomfort. You see, I couldn’t remember the last time I took a bath without talking to Carl on the phone while I did so. The bathtub became a painfully exaggerated reminder of his absence. After the funeral, my friend Erin came to stay with me. She gifted me with bags of epsom salt and oils. I’ve been self-medicating with ridiculous amounts of lavender and peppermint in an attempt to stave off the worst of this depression and bodily aches. But I told Erin that the salt would have to wait, that it might be a long time before I would start taking baths again. Last night’s bath marked some sort of minor turning point. I soaked in that salt and oil infused water until it went cold. I dog-eared the pages of a book that spoke all the words I needed to hear.

And then I slept.

Healing comes in the tiniest of increments. Like little crumbs that are nothing on their own, but will someday, hopefully, add up to something easier and more functional. That embrace I received from Carl in my dreams this morning, it is still living and holding me tight. I’m nowhere near ready to feel better or normal for anything longer than a fraction of a moment. I’m not yet ready to leave this grief.

For now, there are dog kisses and Henry smiles and long baths. There are good books and great friends. There is Carl’s family and prayer and song. There are Carl’s blankets and a mountain of good memories. There is this old flannel shirt. And still…there is an ocean of tears that I do not doubt will carry me somewhere extraordinary, even if this new paradigm is nearly impossible to get acclimated to.

I love you, Carl. Thank you for your light.

{originally published Nov 28, 2014}

good lord, show me the way.

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Stop. Drop. And selfie. + a black dog photobomb. A moment today that included a genuine smile.

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…and then Henry wanted in on the fun, too.

Nearly impossible to summarize the past few days…North Dakota, being on the road, the sunsets, the immense amount of work, the roller coaster of emotions, the amazing help, the late night trip home, the exhaustion, this day of gratitude…

I don’t know where to start and so I’ll start right here. With this moment on my kitchen floor. This moment when the Thanksgiving festivities were all over and we all missed Carl and I felt a little consumed by how many days ahead of me I have without him. I came home and put on his old flannel shirt. I was all alone and not knowing how I felt about that, but ended up smiling because my dog Ella attacked me with love and then Henry wanted in on the fun, too. Which leads us right here to the present moment.

And all the while I’ve had this song playing over and over and over in my head…for over a week. I dream it, I wake up to it, I hum it, I pray it, I fall asleep to it. I hear it while I drive or tend to tasks. Over and over it keeps playing like a song that Carl is sending me, just like he always used to do.

Good Lord, show me the way.

booked flights. peeled potatoes.

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I did it. I booked my flight. I’m going to Florida for my 40th birthday. The trip that was going to be a gift from Carl, has instead been gifted by something I can only call grace.

Honestly, it’s been a rough day. It’s been a day of tears. Lots of them. Yesterday wasn’t all that easy either, but then the goodness started flowing in. A quickening occurred. My neighbor and his two strong friends hauled a trailer full of hay over from the barn so that it would be closer and easier for me to feed the horses. Another friend texted an offer to help me pay for the flight to Florida. At the exact same moment, someone else, who isn’t even on facebook and therefore doesn’t see my posts, texted me an image of a crystal ball in the hand of a woman, lit with sunlight and magic on the beach of an ocean. She wished me light and love. These three things happened simultaneously and, in that moment, the gaps of my doubt were brightly, divinely filled in.

Later that night, I went to celebrate Carl’s brother-in-law, Steve’s, birthday. It was a special celebration because his life, too, is a gift. He’s had to overcome his own hurdles. In my brain-fog, I almost forgot about the party. Then I didn’t want to go. Then I changed my mind. I went and was grateful that I did. It ended up being just what I needed. I came home to an email with a commitment from a new client, one that’s been hanging in the wings for the past couple weeks.

I’ve also been gifted with two places to stay–one a high-end Miami Beach hotel and the other my very own grotto near the ocean. I was offered friendship. A place to follow jungle roots or space to cry into the sea.

I went to bed last night feeling exhausted, amazed, almost overwhelmed by the speed and depth of it all. I had another dream about Carl. Another adventure. And his spirit was with me.

Tomorrow I’m leaving for North Dakota again. I will be finishing up loose ends, tending to remaining details. I leave early. There’s still lots to do before I leave and I can’t seem to get my energy to settle down enough to write. There is a part of me that dreads this particular trip out west–the finality of it. Carl won’t be there. His room is clean. Nothing is the same.

Constantly, this contradiction between grace and difficulty. I sometimes feel like I’m walking in a bog. The ground constantly moving, changing beneath me. There is death and beauty in every step.

On Thursday I peeled potatoes with Carl’s sisters. We peeled potatoes and talked and listened to soft music. I felt peace. We were sad when the job was done. I wished I could have peeled a thousand more potatoes because, for that time, the depth of my loss held still. This morning I went to listen to a friend sing at the Unitarian church. I had never been there before, but I braved my own unknowing and let myself in thru the front door. The words of her song, her voice, the acoustics of the guitar she played: her beauty condensed. So perfect that it caused cold, plump tears to streak the skin of my face. Reaching my chin and then holding there for a moment before disappearing into my lap. I couldn’t stop them. I sat in a room full of mostly strangers and, silently, with my eyes closed, I wept. That same friend who sang such a beautiful song will accompany on my journey tomorrow out west tomorrow. We don’t even know each other all that well and, yet, there couldn’t be a better person to be holding this space with me. These gifts, they just keep showing up.

But this trip to Florida…this is something. The way I feel him so close to me in all of this. I was supposed to go on this trip with Carl…and it seems that I still am. He is so entirely woven into all of it that, without a doubt, I know I am meant to go. I decided to rent a car and leave much of the trip unplanned. Going there to see where Carl leads me…even if it’s only to the ocean where I’ll probably have a good cry.

This photo, it is one I took in Spain, near the border of Morocco and the Strait of Gibraltar…it’s a million lifetimes ago. I’m so heartbroken and perplexed by where this journey is taking me. But, Carl, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.

{originally published Nov 23. 2014}