My Great Wall has taken over half a lifetime to build as such, I didn’t appreciate the disruption that left me breathless and sweating like some cheap rotisserie chicken, all featherless and exposed.

This time last year I was doing yoga in the loft one last time before loading the truck. Golden hour would never be the same. Nothing has felt right, familiar, sane, satisfying, aligned, or even real since; with one confusing exception.

I’ve successfully managed to not feel anything for a year. The despair of puppy blues doesn’t count. Neither does the sheer bliss of dancing on mountain tops with my sister. Those highs and lows cancel each other out. I’m talking about the cavernous space between heaven and hell. The purgatory of yearning for that which was and may never be again.

Bend never wanted me. Too expensive, exclusive, elusive. No matter how much I loved her, I felt the consistent presence of her cold shoulders; icy gusts off the Deschutes even when the wildfires raged. She was always all Just chill. Just chill. Pretending not to notice… anything really. You chill. Microbrew.

Despite the allergies, and my face chapping off my skull, eyeballs bleeding, body fat dissolving, hair splitting like logs from the always dwindling wood pile, steady stream of suicides, child fatality reviews, crisis calls, fragile egos and homeless tweakers, I miss her. Like crazy.

The soundbaths, Natures, aspergrass, Benham Falls, river trail, Jubilee, soy candles, Newport Market, Dudley’s, Drake Park, Bond and 900 Wall, Brother John’s, Mothers, roundabouts, everything bird, the soot on the walls, the sunlight, cinder cone, stickers, unicycles, Fitness 1440, Sisters, Haystack, Domino Room, Hayden Holmes, Looney Bean, Vanilla, Palette, Jackson’s Corner, Black Crater, Crater Lake, Smith Rock, Government Camp, Mt. Hood, Bachelor, the Cascade Byway, Tumalo Falls, the lavender farm, Ratchet and Mochi.

Convergence of worlds is allowed. Compassion, needed. Peace, joy, contentment, adventure, love: always possible if we dare to remain flexible and surrender to what is.

When beauty is incomparable, it’s almost scary what we’re willing to put up with. You become utterly delusional. The flames, blizzards, lack of stability, equity, honesty, clarity; you concede the need for all of it just to worship at the feet of a horizon. Have you ever ached over missing a tree? Or cried bidding farewell to a shrub, cliff, trail, mountain, bench, sign, falls, shop, coastline, deli, or the faces of familiar strangers? Probably. I’d never lived anywhere I really loved long enough to actually care that I might not see it again. The same might be true for love.

That being said, I willingly released her to make room for a lightly outlined new chapter that has been slowly unfolding before me ever since. I prefer to live with an open palm; a belief in and receptivity to vastly infinite possibilities. Untethered when I’m scared, and expansive when I’m fearless. So you can imagine even my surprise when everything I thought I knew about myself was undone by a door bell.

Like the stray feline who’d always appear on the same corner between downtown and Miller’s Landing, he pounced out of nowhere, clinging to my foot steps only to spontaneously disappear as if magnetically pulled into his own shadow. I’d worry if he’d eaten or whether he had someplace safe and warm to sleep but was reassured each time I went out, that he was still alive and clearly feeding off something. But I prefer to maintain a well planned and steady pace, rather than standing on corners decoding the puzzles of silent, feral creatures.

Since then, I’ve started unpacking a lifetime under a roof I’m reclaiming as the home I own. To say the solace of my sanctuary has been smudged is an understatement and while fences are expensive, my gratitude is more protective than temporary pain or temporal barriers. Bruises eventually heal. And so will we.

For now, I’m giving myself permission to miss everything about you. The heat of basalt basins, lava beds and hot springs. The saturation of colors across the body of the high desert after a rain. The endless trails of possibilities at my fingertips. The sensory explosions outside my wall of windows. Everything that called out and cradled me; a wilderness so vast I couldn’t help but bow down and …Bend.

Long story short, I miss you. ‘Greenland’ is pretty but I’m still figuring myself out while saving for rugs, shelves, curtains and all the things that remind me how many times I’ve started over. Charlie helps but I still worry too much about everything. I’m almost tired enough to stop worrying altogether if it weren’t for the ways healthy worrying stops us from completely falling or jumping off cliffs. Margins however, remain frustrating. These imaginary lines like corsets that hold our stuff in. Repression. Denial. Delayed gratification. Distracted dreams. Taking forever to just come to your senses. For who? What? Why? Anyway, once upon a time I moved. And our stories go on. What else is new. xo