Definitely at Home

Definitely at Home

I don’t know how I got here.  

Here.  This picture, Richmond Pond, is just down the road.  

How did that happen?

Here.  In this moment, sitting in my quiet house, morning birds all a’flutter and awakening.  

How did that happen?

In the past, my best attempt at being at home was lounging in my NYC apartment, reclining and pillowed on its uneven wooden floor surrounded, no doubt, by Chinese food take-out containers (I mean, it was NY—what else does one eat?), the television on mute as I watched with drugged enthusiasm a National Geographic show about birds, surely aided by the boost of much marijuana.

I don’t know how I got here where the birds are real.  

I am in awe of the beauty that surrounds me.  

Sometimes I see it; sometimes I am too busy organizing the universe, its people and events, to see anything.

I well remember my first sober springtime.  I was living in NYC then, and walked the few blocks from my apartment to St. Marks’ Place, where I attended meetings.  To my amazement, the entire block was lined with remarkable flowering trees, exploding with startling, blossomed beauty.  I stopped short in my tracks. Where had these trees come from? Were they just brought in? As I approached our meeting spot, I saw Jose, a guy from my home group, sitting on the stoop.  Sober now for nine months, I was embarking upon, with my sponsor’s urging, the talking-to-other-people-thing, and using words to do it, an uncharted territory for me.  I approached Jose.

“Jose, hi, hey, when did these trees get here?” I asked, not yet big on chit-chat.

His lean, long face gazed into me for an expanded moment, with wise eyes that still see me today.

“They been here a long, long time, girl,” were the words he said, words which I have never forgotten.

I had walked down that street hundreds and hundreds of times, having lived in the neighborhood for a decade-and-a-half, walking that block to get to the train, to get mostly everywhere.  I had never seen the trees!

I had been too busy.

I don’t know how I got here, here where I sometimes can see.  Here where I am mostly aware when I am not seeing.

How did this happen?

I don’t know how I am blessed to live in a place that is so alive with critters, with fuzzy and furry and fishy beings who share the earth with us, with such nobility, such silent and total presence.  Beings beyond politics, beyond news cycles, beings of presence.

Guardians of being.  

I don’t know how, with each springtime, I am able to see just a little more of the grace that infuses each moment.

Let me share with you 47 seconds from one of my favorite spots, the wetlands behind our house.  Please join me on this excursion.