No Going Back

Parking Lot

Hog Island Oyster Company

Tomales, Calfornia

Last night, I left the family Christmas Eve dinner before the pasta and seafood was served. I lost my appetite for food and company. Retreating, I fell asleep watching my favorite holiday movie "It's a Wonderful Life".  I woke up from a dream this morning, Scott was writing me a letter, the last sentence in cursive reading "You can find me at the park". 

This morning, Christmas, I know I cannot go back. I cannot return to the safety of the life I had before. I cannot go back finding comfort in family. I cannot go back and live in Sonoma where I lived before I met Scott. I know the journey ahead of me will be a road I have not taken before. The time is not here yet for me to venture forth. I feel stuck and frustrated in some ways, because of COVID. 

I have to be patient for the doors to open while doors are shutting now. I am not good at being patient. 

In the meantime, while at my old "home", I will travel the back roads searching for the mystery and meaning behind the pain. 

The meaning maybe as simple and complex as meeting a cat named Sophia, listening to a flock of sparrows chattering and singing at the Church of St. Francis, a baby fawn searching for me behind a window separating one world from the next, a sunrise so beautiful it takes my breath away, watching a flock of coots splash and play in the river by the sea as seagulls glide over, it could be the message I received the other day to remember to follow the "flute music" , the music that might guide me to a place or a person along the path I am supposed to meet in the future.

Who knows? Every moment unfolds one mystery to a revelation to another mystery as I search for the meaning in all of this.

I just know one thing for sure. There is no going backwards.