in ink.

I spent this last weekend in between home and almost home, ultimately in comfort. The same comfort I was running from in June of this year happens to be what I was craving by October.

Life plays the most interesting tunes, and to be somewhere that's familiar and foreign is like when I heard the Willie Nelson album accompanied by an orchestra. Is this what I think it is? Weird, and anchoring. So 'home', the place of my childhood and parent's address, and 'almost home', the city in close proximity, remain strangely familiar and equally distant; A full service gas station. I filled up, and used the time in the car, while someone else filled my tank, to reflect and attain perspective.

I sit here in the District on a Tuesday looking forward to an evening with friends, thankful that I have befriended people that love falafel, and also plotting my exit, which I hope happens sooner than later.

I excel at the exit. I make them grand. It's the thereafter that lacks detail, and monumental purpose. Is it plausible that, for me, the exit is the purpose? And that what happens after is the little a. under purpose's capital P in life's outline? I leave, exit, and then search with pressure for the purpose to follow, forgetting to rest in the elemental experiences that follow change, experiences that are full of the purpose I am searching for, albeit unconventional.

My last and favorite cab driver to date imparted the above wisdom, with an emphatic shaking of his head, alongside insisting that he drop me off right in front of the salon's entrance. He affirmed that "pressuring yourself does more harm than good", and also, that "you're still young! You've got time!" I was tempted to give him an impromptu new and further away address to extend the conversation. "Good Luck Miss Meredith," he said before I slammed the door.

The wisdom continued on the plane, however, after my seat neighbor Mr. Cook asked me what business was in. I answered with something eloquent like, "I'm not." In the tiny jet I took from Memphis to Tulsa, he shared with me the wisdom he's attained over the past sixty-eight years of his life. He reiterated the no pressure sentiment previously imparted by cab driver, as well as my youth, and finally, the nugget that stuck: "Write it it down. Where do you want to be when you're forty? Write it down. Before you get there, you feel aimless, like you're bobbing around at sea. And when you get there, succeeding at something you love, it's like a weight is lifted, even if it's not permanent. Writing it down has worked for me twice," he said. These words should come as no surprise to an aspiring writer, and yet...

An unwanted return brought me back to the foreign that's currently temporarily home, though the only aspects of home this place truly embodies happen in the presence of the lovely friends I've made, and also, alongside a really really good cup of coffee. Those moments are more fleeting. After settling in in a distant sort of way, I retrieved my favorite pen and held it against my foxy black notebook; a slim ribbon holds the page and the entire package screams "I mean business." That's what I am hoping will follow the writing down. Meant Business.

On a day distant from now, a stranger sitting to my left on a plane in the air will ask me what business I am in. This distant exchange will feel strangely familiar, and I will have an eloquent answer that sounds something like what's been written on the pages of the black notebook with the juicy gel ink pen currently residing in my right corduroy jacket pocket.

'we'll see', still, and good.

I am beginning to think there's no such thing as backwards in life. It's one of the things I have feared most. My view gets brighter at the thought of moving forward, moving, always headed ahead, not not not behind. The thing about change and nomadic tendencies is that you'll eventually get to a, "what's next," point in time. It's always a possibility, but a steady paying job accompanied by a lease and/or a mortgage makes it less likely, and more of an obstacle than an inevitability.

In my case, it's an inevitability.

A friend of mine told me on the telephone the other day that I don't need to be pushed, or nudged. I am capable of making decisions. I, rather, need a spark. Sparks are harder to come by than pushes. There's always pushy people to run to along the way, and pushy people usually like telling you what you should do. That's one of the things that make them pushy. Sparks are more elusive.

So when looking forward, all directions are a possibility. The person that's looking ahead is different than the person that was looking ahead months ago; pushing oneself into change makes that, too, an inevitability. The lens through which I see the world is now wider. Necessary routes to happiness have become more refined.

I've spent some time taking stock of things, and am ever aware of what I don't want. I don't want the suburbs. I don't want to be a server. I don't want to find my identity through what I do. I don't want artificial relationships. I don't want fail at trying. I don't want to work in an office pushing papers for a cause I don't care for. I don't want a big house. I don't want to stay anywhere out of default. I don't want to spend another summer suffering through caustic humidity. I don't want to be chained down by material things. I don't don't don't don't....

...want to be so focused on the don'ts that I miss the good that sometimes hangs out in their midst.

"What's next," doesn't have to be a source of stress. I don't have to have a practical answer to give people. I can view my fickle nature as a positive, and opposed to a wild fault that needs to be tamed. Backwards and reverse? That's the language of cars, trucks, and trains. Not so much life.

moving through.

Growing up, the idea of forgiveness was instilled in my psyche. I spent most days of the week at church hearing about the forgiveness Jesus had bestowed upon us through his sacrifice. This forgiveness was a strait shot to freedom. Life was still hard, but it could only be lived fully through an acceptance of this freedom.

The gift of forgiveness came at a price, however. There was suffering involved. Jesus was scorned, ridiculed, and ultimately crucified. He was murdered in punishment for his divinity and the life he offered. He went through the ultimate pain and humiliation to offer such a gift of forgiveness. I remember a professor in one of my Bible classes in college giving such a beautiful lecture about the simplicity of the story, and the absurdity. Her conclusion rested in just how appropriate the absurdity was, and carried the idea that the only thing strong enough to answer the problem of humanity is the extreme story of Jesus' sacrifice, and the needed forgiveness that followed.

That was my first weighty introduction to the idea.

There was also an incident involving a candle holder, and my mother. Back in the late nineties, those massive candles with three wicks were a must for a woman's home decor. You could get them most anywhere, including candle parties that rocked the nation. These parties remain a phenomenon to me. There's a magazine offering something cute that you can purchase. The host gets special gifts for offering her home as a place to sell, and then those that attend choose things out of the magazine, pointing and looking and deciding, ooo-ing and awe-ing, followed by the writing of a check. A few weeks later, your order arrives in the mail.

My mother isn't one of requirement and she rarely purchases much of anything for herself. She's always giving back to everyone; her kids, her animals, her community. She had been burning one of those three wicked candles for a while, and it rested on a table in her living room, burning down atop an unassuming plate, and at other times, nothing at all, stray wax streaming onto the table like pink lava. After attending a candle party, she gave herself the grace to order the round crystal candle holder to set appropriately beneath the half burned aromatic circular piece of wax.

These were the days before ebay and online orders, so receiving a purchase in the mail carried an even weightier allure. I knew it was coming, as she told me she had ordered it. We looked for it in the mail each day, sighing a little in disappointment each day the little brown box remained absent. I remember the evening it came. She brought the box into the house with her, excited to have a little tiny something she had been wanting for quite a while. I asked if I could open it, and she obliged. She sat on the couch and watched me open the box, take out our little treasure, drop it from my hands, fall to the floor, and break into tiny non-glue-able pieces.

And then she reacted as one who watched something they had been wanting for a while fall onto the floor into pieces; She got really upset. It's a weighty progression. You see something in front of you that you've been wanting for quite some time, you get the chance to hold it in your hands and see it up close, and then, all of a sudden, it becomes completely unattainable and moves from the category of found to that of lost, just like that. It's really frustrating, especially when you're already stressed from other life things, and I was the culprit. I was careless with something that meant something to her. I should have been more careful with something so fragile.

Basically, I felt really bad. I think I may have cried. I wanted my mom to have something for herself maybe as much as she. And then, after a bit, she told me not to worry, "sis". It's just material. It can be replaced.

This is one of the things I most appreciate about my mom. This material thing, and it's ability to be replaced? She really believes it. And she had always instilled that into her children. It's just a "thing", and though things can be fun or good, they aren't as important as the people in your life, and they can always be replaced. So when she told me not the worry, "that it's just a thing that can be replaced," I knew she meant it, and with her sincerity, I remember thinking in that moment that I had gotten a taste of this thing called forgiveness.

Up until now, I had yet to lose the things in my life that I hold closest to me. Though I have left the material source where most of my friendships have bloomed, those that are true remain close, even in their absence. Two-thousand and ten marks the first time, however, that I felt the loss, the breaking-into-un-glue-able pieces, of a friendship I cared about. And with that loss came frustration, anger, hurt, and a bit of a grudge. This marked the first time I really felt the weight of how unhealthy these things can be for a person's general well being and ability to care for themselves. And in consequence, after passing through the aforementioned slew of emotions, it marks the first time that I have really felt the weight that's lifted when forgiveness is bestowed. It's as if the bitterness and anger leave a dirty wax-like residue over all parts of life, and the negative feelings permeate all of the good you try to pursue in spite of them. Trying to find the good requires digging, takes so much more work than is necessary, and leaves gunk underneath your fingernails. Fully moving through the detestable, fully letting go and forgiving gets you out of your own way, allowing the heat from the needed sun to melt the layers of wax.

A co-worker said that for him, it was more of a letting go. And that's part of it, plus a little more. What's left for me is a new season, a weightier from-the-gut appreciation for forgiveness, and untainted autumn sunshine.