.6 years apart.

I just realized its been 6 years to the day since I returned from Ecuador - the emotions swelled up inside of me and crashed inside like that most incredible wave - taking my breath away (knocking the wind of out me for a moment) - the nostalgia. The joy - the sorrow of 27 months of my life from which it all pivoted - revealed - altered - destroyed - rejuvenated. Ecuador ripped my soul to shreds - broke my heart/spirit/body in ways I didn't know were possible. It left me washed up on the shore with no strength to get up or knowledge of where to go - so I rested for a while - I wondered if I'd ever find the strength to stand up but I did get up - I pulled myself up because I had no other way - option. 

I wandered for a good while - I followed people/signs/flashed of light - aimless until I realize that all that weakness/wounds/sorrow were the greatest gifts - ripping me free from myself - from the narrow world i'd known. Everything was open to me. My broken heart was an expanding heart.  My lost mind was my freedom. This journey is so much more complex - rich - vibrant than I could've even imagined.

Ecuador I am forever grateful
for you
you changed my life
it's been 6 years and I think
i've only began to understand
our journey together.
_________________________________________

From my last blog post in Ecuador, August 5th 2009:

"Ecuador has become home, not easily but it has and that it what has made the end of this time so beautiful, all the struggle that I encountered along the way. I’ve seen so much; I’ve been shocked, surprised, devastated, infuriated, elated making it impossible to tell you how my life is going to change and has changed. But my ambitious wish is that my actions will be the example of the changes. That I won’t even for a moment forget this life, the voices, the smells, the struggle, or the heartache. I hope to always be afflicted by the voices and the faces of those born into injustice. That the small amount of exposure you’ve had from my journey has given you a glimpse of Ecuador, a vibrant country full of wonders and struggle and from which I’ve realized despite how great our differences may seem our few commonalities will always hold us together, as one race.

So to you all I send you my love and gratitude for sharing this journey with me. I give thanks to pachamama and the people that showed me the immense beauty in life's simplicities."

.and I know you'll find that it's a wild world.

Oh nostalgia. You hit me like a 10 foot wave anytime I listen to “Running” from Jason Mraz’s “Live at Java Joe’s” there I am squeezed inside of my Grandpa’s big smooth riding royal blue Chevy truck between my Mom and Dad on that overcast day driving over Steven’s pass on our way to the future, the unknown, to my life as I would come to know - College. Blasting the CD on repeat powering me past all the knots in my stomach and drowning out the loud fears of my mind, to the dorm room in Eden’s South where I would hang that poster of South America years before Peace Corps would send me an invitation to live in Ecuador, that I would struggle and thrive in. Years before I would find peace and passion in birth work. And miles far from the personal truths that would take me to Malawi where I would be faced by the ugly side of my selfish and irrational tendencies.

Nostalgia, you bring me back to a place that seems so distant, I place I can sometimes feel so real and others like it didn’t happened. As almost it was a story that someone read to me once. The grey that surrounds it entices me and tugs my heart.

Here I am on a Sunday morning, the African sun is heating up my house and my thoughts are brought back to the grey of my life, the ambiguity of now. The peace I have found and the longing I feel for that energy from a crisp Bellingham morning with a white washed room in front of me and all the possibilities of the world.

Life is beautiful and full.
I hope your life brings in these waves, to feel it.
Feel it all.