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In these high, lonely places you are not alone . . .

2/4/2018

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Alone or not . . . you gotta walk ahead . . . But the thing to remember is that if we're all alone, then we're all together in that , too . . . Kathy Bates' love to her daughter in PS I Love You
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​​Oh, the glory of finding a mountain that overlooked an ocean on an island that day! How often do so many metaphors present themselves all at once?. . . And finding the brave to walk out on the ledge of it all! . . . . It's a badass moment that just won't leave me alone.
Don't look down and don't look back . . .
the mantra that moved me to the edge . . . has the power to carry me for a lifetime . . . or for a season . . . 

​Even so, these pinnacles of hope . . . these moments of triumph . . . one fades into the next that we chase. I hold a generous handful in my heart and file them away in my soul for the hurting days. 

​Because these badass moments won't leave me alone. 

​Almost a year ago to the day from my island mountain,  there was an epic ski-fall down a different mountain that has carried me from one winter to the next of now. I wasn't alone on that mountain. It was the end of December and I imagined a very different new year than the one that stretched out before me. I didn't expect that just as the snow began to melt, that I would find myself, quite suddenly, alone. And by fall . . . very alone in a new apartment and with a new job across the state. The summer was a blur.

​It must have taken a monumental amount of effort to find a new job and move to a new apartment . . . to plan for all the details of dismantling a whole life and transplanting it somewhere else. But I don't remember much of it  . . . the hard parts, anyway . . the painful stretches of faith I know must have happened . . . the giant leap to bridge the gaps of sameness between the years of pain and disappointment . . . to make different decisions than the ones that never brought about any real change or healing . . . I don't remember much of it . . . I only remember that I never felt alone. 

​You can do this. You're not alone.
​Don't look down and don't look back.

​Most days this place where I've landed still feels bewildering . . . Sometimes, in moments and in longer stretches of darker days, the silence and shame of a broken life . . . the alone-ness of it . . . the fear of  just me . . . paralyzes.  And then I remember the details of the beautiful detours over the past year . . . the places I went alone . . . with perfect clarity . . . and . . . well, then I remember. It was in the places I went alone that I have felt the most connected . . .  have felt the healing and the mystical, magnetic energy that will always draw me back to my people. . . and back to my most authentic self. This is when I know I am living in the right decision . . . for the now . . . And I understand, truly, that I am not alone here . . . That God's plan for me has always been for human angels to stand in the gap . . . to send hope from the shadows . . . to wait on the shores . . . to drive the getaway car . . . 

​From winter to winter in this journey I have been sheltered in love. And this is what I remember the most . . . 

​The in between of places and people . . . of rolling miles over highways and skies and seasons with time for deep introspection . . . Feeling the snow move beneath my feet . . . and moving my feet over the warming earth until my soul was cleansed and my body produced a high that no drug can match. The solitude of a paddleboard gliding over diamond sunlight paths on sleepy country lakes . . . and being carried dangerously alone out over the waves to a mighty blue ocean . . . Standing high on borrowed balconies over electric cities and eclectic towns in the solitude of twilit nights . . .  and sun-stretched in the cool of borrowed backyard pools . . . losing myself in silence and drowsy joy. . .


​Standing in the arch of rainbows in the day and watching the stars fall down around me at night . . . Staring into a the flames of a dozen backyard, midnight fires  . . . sipping Merlot and watching the sun disappear into the moon . . . hanging my most fervent prayers on the Eastern star of Sirius while the world slept and a crystal lake lapped at my feet . . . close encounters with mythic and whimsical creatures . . . dolphins and whales, turtles big and small, and fantasmically colored fish . . .  drawn from the depths just for me . . .  a single deer that stood rooted outside my back door watching me in the dark fog of an autumn morning . . . the wonder of soaring eagles crossing my sky path exactly when I needed to feel their freedom . . . and the stark red of cardinals against white falling snow exactly when I need to see colors.  

​And this  

. . . On the loneliest afternoons . . . and darkest just before dawn mornings . . . lifting my hands and listening for the small, still, mighty voice that tells me:

It is in these highest, loneliest places, that you are never alone. It is in these broken places of prayer and praise and gratitude . . . and in the intercession of others . . . that my plans will come together for you. It is on the jagged edges of fear and uncertainty and anxiety when you come to me that I will lift you up.

In all of this . . . in all of my loneliest places . . .  someone watched for . . .  waited for . . . prayed for me. 

​Mercifully, these are the moments I remember the most. To be sure, there has been devastating pain . . . anguished broken-ness.  But I don't remember falling . . . so much a being caught . . . in this earth-splitting, soul-shattering year . . . 

​And that at the end of it, I summoned the courage to walk out on the edge of it . . . alone . . . because there are some places in life that we can only go by ourselves. True badass is, of its very nature, all by yourself.

​ In the dawning hours of this new year, 3500 feet above the ocean on a mystical island in the middle of the Pacific, I hiked out three miles on a mother-tough trail with my brothers. There was sticky, sucking mud and twisty tree roots, narrow paths taunted by steep-drop ledges, and tunnels of foliage so thick that they blocked out the light. We took turns catching our breath and taking the lead in variations . . . three beside, two beside and one ahead . . . one behind . . . climbing, crawling . . . always playing catch up, but always together. At the end, we blinked into the blue wonder . . . looked up, down, and all around . . . then looked to our left and beheld a rebel mountain ridge path that stretched forward on its own about fifty yards . . .  narrow and precarious and shaped by a thousand years of strong winds that might blow us over the edge. And I had to do it. I had to go with it. Some crazy metaphorical, storytelling streak of insanity that I might have inherited compelled me forward.

​You can't do that. 
​Yes, I can. And you're going to take pictures.
​Don't look down and don't look back.

​
And I went out alone. Step by careful step, crawling, grasping, eyes closed, heart racing, too late to turn back . . . Hands raised to Heaven and trusting because it was just me and Him.

 ​
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1 Comment
Rebekah badwi
2/25/2018 03:45:40 pm

So brave! So eloquently said! Such an inspiration 😘

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    I'm Aerin Leigh.  I'm a once upon a time teacher and a forever reading cheerleader.  I'm a writer, a reading specialist, and a a believer in the power of words.  I've seen a little of the world, but my first love is Michigan.  I live here with my husband and two spoiled Boxer dogs, Merlot and Riesling.  We're happy empty nesters and we spend a lot of time in our hot tub. . . to stay warm.  Winter is my solace, but Summer has been my teacher and my friend.  I'm an occasional runner, and a constant connoisseur of wine and friendship and gel nails.  Anything that lights up is magic to me . . .  like fireflies, the glow of a storybook moon, Christmas lights under the stars, and my Colorado grandbabies' faces when they see me on Skype.  I embrace quirky things like Feng Shui and Acupuncture and prayer . . . because they just might work.  I'm a survivor of much and of many, but I leave my heart wide open.  My children are my role models, my current passion is possibility, and my God is good. 


    Come follow my leap of faith journey . . . There'll probably be a lot of crazy, but you just might get to witness a soft landing.  
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