Choice

It's all in a breath.

Last Friday I decided I would travel to Oregon for Easter. I worked late and rearranged my schedule to make it work. I was on the road Saturday morning and very excited to see my family as I hadn't been home since last July. I have a very large and close extended family. My mother is one of ten children and I often remember her saying that it "takes a tribe to raise a child." My tribe is lovely, and I can hardly believe that it has been so long since I have been in their presence.

Upwards of 70 degrees and the sun was shining around 4:30pm when I arrived at my parents house. Quite the hostess, Mother was ready with Delice de Bourgone cheese, Brie, an assortment of gf crackers, and cocktails. Although she said she scrounged the cupboards to pull it together, it was lovely (clearly she keeps delicious things in her cupboards). Even better than the favorable weather and good food, in addition to mother, father, and brother E, I was surprised and delighted to see a few of  my aunts and uncles had come over as well. We sat outside and enjoyed each others' company; brother J arrived, soon after to be followed by cousin K who arrived in style on her tandem bicycle.

Oh yes, we had a tandem bicycle date and I had been looking forward to it. K and I were born a month and a day apart. We have been best friends our entire lives. Off to ride in the remaining daylight, we cleverly moved beyond the neighbors arborvitaes (so that my family didn't have a good show of us potentially eating it) before we braved taking off on the tandem. To our surprise, we sailed smoothly from takeoff. Before I go any further I should say that K's tandem is pretty rad. It is old school, and has fun bells and a speakerbox where you can hook an ipod. I can't help but smile at the joyful sound of the bell.

Joy riding and bell ringing, happy to be together we revisited our old high school although it is hardly recognizable as such. When we were leaving the parking lot we had a near tragic moment. It was a curb/no curb situation with a last minute decision to take the street a.k.a. hop the curb. The only words to accurately describe this moment are "Epic save and master maneuvering." Had K's steering skills not been so amazing, we may have ended up straddling a telephone pole grounding wire before joining the tandem in the street. This did not happen. Epic save. After sharing an omg that just happened glance and giggle, we peddled downtown and made our way to Thistle where we enjoyed a pre prohibition cocktail and great company. Thistle sources everything locally. The community building that the lovely people of Thistle and Community Plate are creating at the table in McMinnville is truly amazing.

McMinnville is a relatively small town (population 2009: 31,729) and I guess you could say my tribe is pretty well known. I have lived away from McMinnville for the past 5 years and it amazes me how people I meet already know who I am and details about my life by association with my tribe. Seriously, nearly every conversation started, "This is N's daughter, Anna," or "This is E's sister, Anna." Which would then be followed by a moment of recognition, greeting, and either "How are you healing from your accident?" or "You live in Spokane, right, how do you like it?" It always brings a smile to my face. Even though I don't make it home nearly as often as I'd like and often feel like the phantom daughter, home is always home, and I am clearly loved.

Easter Sunday is the largest family gathering of the year for us. It used to be my favorite holiday simply because I enjoyed participating and seeing the amazing men and women in my family work together in the kitchen to create such a magnificent feast, where all were welcome to share. The pictures really speak for themselves in terms of the scale, but I have to note they are a little blurry as everyone was piling back inside from the parking lot from taking our annual family picture and I was slightly fearful of getting run over. Can you blame me?

Beginning of the Line

View from Dessert Table End

Sunday passed too quickly but left smiles on my heart. It was 7:30 before I realized the time, and after stopping off to say goodbye to my parents and get my Kaia dog, I was headed West when all signs for Spokane pointed East. It was raining buckets in the Van Duzer Corridor, but that didn't matter as my hands remembered the familiar road that was taking me to the only place I wanted to be.

I hadn't seen the Pacific Ocean in almost a year-I hadn't felt like I could breathe entirely freely for almost a year. An earthen relationship I had been cultivating since childhood was pulling me back with the tides, singing my name and sneaking into every free moment of my consciousness. Adding two extra hours onto my already seven hour drive home may not have been a wise decision in my mother's eyes, but for me it was the only answer.

For the past few weeks I have been dreaming of the ocean day and night: the tides gravitating by the forces of the sun, moon, and earth, the waves breaking upon the shore, my feet in the water and a cool breeze dancing across my cheeks brushing back salt curled tendrils that tickle my skin. I have walked along side it, I have knelt before it, I have waded into it. I have bowed in awe to it's power. With each breath of salt filled air my spirit was exfoliated. Sloughing off all that was unneeded, illuminating peace to the truths my intuition knows. Fresh, alive, and reborn. I could finally breathe again. Then I awoke.

The ocean is the reality of my dream; deep, powerful, unknown--full of life and wonder.

I greeted my old friend last night, I walked along the ocean shore, I sat in the sand, I remembered, and I wondered. I listened to the waves, the wind, and my breath. I sat in silence, and when I spoke I promised I would be back again soon.

I almost gave my mother a heart attack last night. At the very least, I know she didn't rest well until 5:30am Monday when she knew I was safely home in my bed. Her immediate text response upon my arrival affirmed this suspicion. I'm sorry to worry you mother, but we both know that I was born with a free spirit and a strong will, after all I am your daughter. While a part of me may have known that your reasons were reasonable, I understood that unreason was the only resolve to honor the needs I recognized deep in my soul.

The end of a long beautiful adventure, the beginning of a new day 5:15am Spokane, WA

I am a writer.

**Fine Print.. I was working on this post at the end of May when my macbook was stolen, which further delayed my return to the blogging world**

Two days ago I set myself free, free to write confidently, lively, and openly. Free to write without self judgment or self doubt. Free to let my words create their own form.

The truth is that I have had a hard time posting lately, not only because I have very little spare time, but because I was my own greatest barrier. My previous posts were painfully pulled from my fingertips; I was excited with the subject matter and generally happy with the end result, but I have been frustrated with the process.

Technical writing being my main experience, I had put myself in such a box that I could barely function. I didn't know everything that I was going to write in this forum before I started writing and as such my previous writing techniques were ineffective and confining.

Example. In college when writing papers, regardless of the length or subject (mainly political science, philosophy, economics), once a sentence became formed it remained the same; as each paragraph was finished, it was finished and not revisited. When I reached the end of a paper, I did not need to go back and check for spelling or grammatical errors. I understood what I wanted to communicate, I understood how my thoughts, ideas, and sentences would connect and flow both logically and powerfully before I ever started writing.

I am confident in my technical writing skills although I'll admit they could use some polishing; however, I held a significant amount of self doubt concerning my skills in any other form of writing. In retrospect, I realize that I held the belief I would fail at any other form. I realized my err two days ago. I was driving, and suddenly I thought, I am a writer. I couldn't stop smiling. Finally aware of my self doubt, I became ready to shed it.

Self Doubt: "A lack of faith or confidence in oneself."

It is disconcerting, deteriorating, and debilitating.

What good comes of self doubt?

Nothing. Nothing good comes of self doubt.

At this point in my life that is what I believe. Self doubt simply restricts expression, learning, experience, growth, and joy. Who wants that?

I intend to be a confident, dynamic, changing being as I continue to learn to live and to love. I will do it joyfully. I will dance in my endeavors. I will misstep, but I will accept it as part of the learning experience. Today, I have chosen to leave self doubt behind once and for all. If I am intrigued, I will question, explore, and experience. And then I will write, because hey, I am a writer.

In my experience, the quickest way to learn to become/do 'something' is to accept that we are already on our way there. We may be in the stages of learning to become, but even as we change and grow, we already exist as some form of what we intend to be. I am a writer now, even as I continue to learn to express myself better. I believe that we hinder the speed of our learning in this way. We realize what we want to be, but we don't let ourselves believe that we are it until we can do it in a way that satifies our "perfect." Why can't we be it throughout the process of learning as well? I guess I can say that I've learned to get out of my own damn way.

Of course, my mother would be thankful to hear that no amount of confidence will lead me to believe that I should express myself by singing. When I was in 3rd grade and trying out for a lead part in a school singing performance/play, she cried. Trust me, she had a reason to cry. I was terrible, but I sang it like I believed it. She cried out of love. Even though others may have been laughing, she was proud of me.

Honestly, I had no idea I was that terrible. She didn't tell me. Her love for me likely couldn't bear to break my spirit. I retained that fearless confidence throughout my youth. In the past months, this fearless confidence is what I have been working to regain. For now, I'm going to focus on writing: on scratch paper, in books, in a journal, online, anywhere I feel compelled.

Is there something you've hesitated to do because you've already decided that you can't? Can you let yourself try and fail, and try again? And enjoy the process, knowing that you're learning?

Set yourself free from self doubt. Love and accept any expression that may come, even if it means feeling like an awkward teenager sometimes as I'm assuming I will often in my early stages of writing freedom.

Writing is a way of saying something out loud. In both written and verbal expressions I find that the 'something' becomes a little more real and a lot more attainable.

What is your 'something'?

Say it out loud, even if you're the only one who's listening.

Love.