28 Days.

I want:

I want to make things with my hands.

I want to dip my feet in cold water at least once a day.

I want to make up stories to tell to my Noah.

I want to read good books, eat ripe, REAL tomatoes, and not worry about my hair.

I want to drive in the evening with the window down and lovely music playing.

I want to teach Noah to recognize bird calls.

I want to wear skirts all the time.

I want to have a pink streak in my hair.

I want to not have to book clients if I don’t want to.

I want to sing in a choral group.

I want to be better at my banjo.

I want to go to a matinee movie at least once a week.

I want to be moved to tears.

I want to hold new babies.

I want to sing harmony with someone.

I want to put away foolish desires—vain worldliness.

I want to keep eating more veggies and fruits.

I want to keep running.

I want to keep putting off the desire for sugar and starch and caffeine.

I want to meditate more.

I want to give back.

I want to be in the same room as my dear dear friends.

I want a week in a wintry cabin in the mountains with my loved ones.

I want to stretch.

I want to be slow… to be present…. To be mindful.

I want to make the things I envision in my mind.

I want a little farmhouse with a tire swing and fields and woods and a barn.

I want to listen to baseball games on the radio while lying on a porch swing in the evening.

I want to make jam.

I want a braid in my hair.

I want to laugh til I cry.

I want to have my family albums in my hands, done, and ready to enjoy.

I want more summer before my favorite fall creeps in.

I want to keep feeling this good, this at peace….

Thank you, 28 days. Thank you, those who knew of my journey and prayed for me. Thank you, Joe and Noah, for letting me try this. Thank you, God, for carrying me through it. Thank you, Self, for showing me that

“I am larger, better than I thought;  I did not know I held so much goodness.” (W.Whitman, Song of the Open Road)

Thank you.

*

(and now, because I can…. I must add that whole section of Walt Whitman’s poem, my utter favorite, the section that makes me bawl as I contemplate these past 28 days.

From Song of the Open Road, pt. 5

5

From this hour, freedom! 

From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, 

Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,  55

Listening to others, and considering well what they say, 

Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, 

Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.    

 I inhale great draughts of space; 

The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.  60   

 I am larger, better than I thought; 

I did not know I held so much goodness.    

All seems beautiful to me; 

 I can repeat over to men and women, You have done such good to me, I would do the same to you.    

I will recruit for myself and you as I go;  65

I will scatter myself among men and women as I go; 

I will toss the new gladness and roughness among them; 

Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me; 

Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.)

*

Amen, amen, amen...