another sexy saturday night…
is everyone ok? i can report that new jersey is on a popsicle stick. my southern friends await snowmaggedon, and my pacific coast family is wondering about tsunamis. Mother Earth sure is showing us who’s the Boss.
i have the good fortune of shelter and warmth, which affords me the luxury of sitting at this laptop today and sharing the next of my musings. and lately, i’ve been stuck on the word “longing.”
the word itself showed up during a conversation with my physical therapist, a gifted healer with the patience of a saint and the determination of a pro-athlete coach. with his help, i’ve been recovering my own patience and my upper back muscles, both of which i completely lost during my 28-year stint as a cubicle jockey. i’ve been in his hands since last spring and, in between sets of torture, if i can catch my breath, i try to get to know him a little. his journey – like every immigrant’s journey – is amazing to me. he’s from the philippines and, like my cuban family, i know he comes from a place with a much closer relationship with the sun and vastly different daily rhythms. not long ago, as the weather here started to turn i thought, this extended grey, frigid stretch ahead cannot be easy for him and his family.
i told him this and when he agreed, i asked, “do you want to go back?”
he shook his head. i knew the answer is infinitely layered. but instead of digging too much, i stuck with the weather and shared that i was born seven minutes away and never fully enjoy the extended extremes, but i do love the change.
“i don’t know that i would like a place where the weather is always the same,” i said.
“i know,” he responded. “it’s the longing.”
the longing.
i had to repeat it. all this time, i’ve been focused on celebrating change and the hope of it. but it has never occurred to me to celebrate the desire for it. and it occurs to me now that maybe it’s the thing that comes before everything else.
i sign off to that poet’s word this cold saturday night. may we see, acknowledge, and honor our own longing, and the spring that lives in it.
sleep well, kids.
s
Light of Day Coaching LLC 