As a child, I often saw my Aunt Mattie "take her lunch" standing at our kitchen window. In fact, I'm fairly certain that she also ate most of her breakfast meals here, as well. On occasion, my little self would shove an old, worn kitchen chair up to the window, climb on top and stand by her side, looking out, searching for whatever it was that drew her attention time and again. Sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of one critter or another walking across the yard to the compost pile eagerly in search of their own repast. But most of the time there was nothing noteworthy to a little one's eyes there to be seen. Trees, in various throws of whatever season we were in, grass a thick carpet spread out along the counterplane, and an weathered red barn that had seen better days...none of these overly impressive when the world, to my eyes, was new with too many other, more "shiny" things to see. This evening, however, it hit me, her strange ritual finally clicking into place.

As I stood in my own kitchen, taking my humble dinner of Honey Nut Cheerios with warm, buttery toast over the sink while watching the world through my kitchen window, I realized that Aunt Mattie was onto something extremely special. You see, she was at a place in her life where she truly appreciated simple beauty in quiet places while she enjoyed her own company. This may not sound like some epic revelation, but to be honest, being at peace with who you are and where you are in exactly the moment you are in is truly a difficult feat, especially in a world where we are constantly inundated with stimuli. While I watched a neighbor across the street aimlessly wander around her front yard and randomly stoop over to pick up some wayward scrap of something that offended her own grass, I wondered at the process of "sewing" the seeds of my life up to this point. It has been an arduous, often painful process. I also thought back to how many times I had found myself eating a meal, standing alone at that very window and was surprised that it was so many I couldn't determine the actual number. There was a time in my life this revelation would have made me feel terribly lonely. Today, however, all I felt was a lovely inner peace. And when did that happen? When did I come to be comfortable in the silence, with nothing but my own company to...well...keep me company? I'm not sure when that inner "shift" took place. I am, however, completely certain it's a very zen place to be!

Time and again I have struggled with defining who I am, where I'm going, and what lives beneath the depths of my own skin, especially in those dark places most people don't even want to admit they have, much less intimately get to know. I often allowed the noise of the outside world to muddle those defining characteristics that make me uniquely me. I allowed others to create doubts, fears, or even flat-out hatred for what I found in myself, to the point of feeling suffocated by a world that rarely makes sense with its own "face value" and definitely can be vile beneath that surface. Thankfully somewhere along the way, inner me no longer felt the need to continue this destructive pattern. Now, here I stand, popping the last bite of toast in my mouth as I try to figure out what in tarnation that woman across the street is attempting to plant next to her driveway, perfectly happy in the fact that next to my driveway there's a complete riot of violets prettily vying for my ardent attention (to sniff, not extract...much to my husband's dismay).

They walk among us, around us all the time, their bodies and minds carrying around the stories unique to their own life experiences. The people in our periphery on any given day mostly remain veritable strangers to us...i.e. the teachers at our kid's school, the girl who hands us our coffee over some random counter,  the police officer who just drove by us at the light, or the teen who randomly bumps us in passing at the mall. Every once in a blue moon there will be some form of recognition, such as an old colleague from a job we no longer work, or an obscure former member of our high school graduating class, but for the most part, these people are merely blips that pop in and out of our life. It would be easy to assume that this makes them less significant, that we have no discernible connection to these wandering souls traveling near or around the space in which we co-exist, but that would be wrong. Utterly, completely wrong. I can thank April for pointing this out to me...the woman, not the month.

On a day several years ago when I was facing a bout with cancer, April "Instant Messaged" me. She told me that I was not alone and all would be well. That may not seem unusual, except for the fact that prior to that day, she and I hadn't seen each other since high school, hadn't spoken to one another for many, many years. When she friend-requested me on Facebook, I added her, remembering vaguely this bubbly teen whose happy smile couldn't help but put smiles onto the faces of others. Beyond that, however, we remained in each other's periphery until that fateful day when she reached out. You see, she was also battling cancer, and her fight was much more frightening than my own. She confessed to me that she'd been following my writing career. She said, "I wanted to let you know how uplifting and encouraging your writing is to me. You have a gift. Love ya, girl." And just like that I began to cry. I told her I'd been paying attention to her struggles, her life too and that she was a "light that shines pretty and bright". I told her she inspired me, "Just remember when you feel alone or that pile of mess you're dealing with gets overwhelming...you are always close to my thoughts...Tuck me into the back of your mind as the quiet voice saying, 'I'm here. You are loved and you've got this." She told me that meant more to her than I'd ever know...except, maybe I know. I know her light from the periphery was and is just as bright as any light in front of me. I know that even though her soul is gone from this world, she leaves behind this deeper legacy through every single other soul she touched. And I know down to my bones that the ONLY thing any of us does on this Earth of any importance is in the love we sew, nurture, or just flat out give away to others expecting nothing in return. As for all those people in the periphery, they are as essential to us as we are to them. Be gentle with them. Always...and in all ways.

Love,
A.