back home

back home after a hike in the heat of the afternoon, i am sitting out on my back porch, luxuriating in the cool of the coming evening air. my shoes are kicked off, and i feel a sweet breeze lasso my feet and tickle my back; the sun bounces off the leaves of our camellia bush, hinting of the setting sun, casting shadows a bit longer than just an hour ago. it is mostly quiet. one of the boys went over to a friends to spend the night, the other two are inside wiped out from a day of hiking, from working their bodies and sweating out the muck of the week. i am wiped out, from the week, from the heat, from sweating out all the muck inside my heart. but it feels good to be on the other side of an adventure, of something outside ourselves.
   today, we were slow to start out: i wanted to linger over french toast, maple syrup and lazy fatigue; my merry men(including the one almost 40)wanted to linger over a new-to-us strategy game. reflecting now on our very wiped out bodies, i wonder if perhaps we picked a hiking destination a bit too far away considering it was the afternoon when we started out; the afternoon is never quite the ideal time to start hiking in southern california and it was hot today high up on the bluffs and the worn out mountains of Santa Monica. 
   once we started out on our chosen trail, we acknowledged how heated the air really was. and there seemed to be no respite for those who wanted to wander in the shade. the wind would only play with your skin if you were standing still, in direct sunlight. so we were just hot, exposed in the daylight; and trudging our bodies along, feeling the the small laughter of a wandering crow, or a cry high above us from a red tail hawk. as i stared at the barren dry land, it felt more as if it was the high end of summer than the first few weeks of spring, yet i was still able to breathe in air and let go of things.
   all week i felt like a mismatched gumshoed detective that couldn't quite find what was the last clue to some grand mystery; wanting to be the detective, but knowing that it wasn't quite mine to solve....so perhaps i needed this moment more than the boys, to be heated, sweating, feeling the sun pound through my cap and bounce off my knees. exposed. raw. sweating out the muck. for me, perhaps, i needed to push through to the end, watch the boys play and regale in nature despite the heat we were all feeling. press a restart button somewhere in my heart and look out anew to the coming days. and know that all over the world, people are waking to something new, whether it is joy or despair; happy wedded moments or darkness rather left to dust and grief. we are human. and sometimes we just have to push through, with only a whisper of wind to graze across our hearts or lift-up our shirts. push through, until we are
                                                            back home. 
xxoo