Hello friends,
One year ago today, I felt a calling, to return to my passion, my roots—to write. For me, it has always been to write.
One of my most cherished memories from my childhood is of sitting in my grandparent's’ living room and reading aloud from a story I’d written for my grandfather, my papa. It was something about a chipmunk, if I recall correctly.
He was my biggest fan and my biggest cheerleader. He had pie in the sky visions for what I would and could do with my life, one of them being to become a famous pro golfer, to which end he would have me practice my putting in his hallway (incidentally while he watched golf, so perhaps it was just his way to occupy me while he watched golf). But when I read him that story about the chipmunk, I remember distinctly that lit his eyes up, as if he realized that I might actually do something with this putting of pen to paper one day.
I often wonder what he would think of how I’ve done.
My road with writing, my road with everything, really, has been winding, meandering, and unclear. I think that for some people it’s not that way—they have a vision, they follow it, and although they have bumps in the road, it’s always there as a beacon guiding them from one step to the next. For me, it’s been something that has come and gone, in and out of sight, where at some points it’s been super clear, I’ve gotten a hit of inspiration and a direction and then I’ve followed it doggedly. And then, it seems almost inevitably, that thing that I would follow with such conviction would either fade away or fizzle out and I’d be left again wondering “What am I supposed to be doing?” and “Where the f#%k am I supposed to be going?”
As I sit here today, I’m on an airplane flying home from a last minute family trip to Vancouver where my boys and I joined my husband on a business trip.
Since my teens I’ve wanted to see Vancouver, and yet I never felt compelled to pull the trigger and buy plane ticket. The other places I was interested in—Paris, London, Provence, to name a few—pulled to me more deeply and were also cheaper to fly to. Yet I always felt a sort of guilt that I’d been all over Europe but hadn’t seen this huge part of the country of my birth. So as it always happens, as I sat there taking in many moments throughout our family adventure to Vancouver—the absolutely breathtaking views from the beach as I sat wedged between the city and the mountains, the flick of a humpback whale’s tail and the look on my sons’ face when they saw it dive beneath the surface of the ocean, the hilarity and the terror I felt of hiking Grouse Mountain with a severe fear of heights and a passel of children in tow with our close friends—I realized that I was seeing Vancouver at the exact right time, with the exact right people, and there had never been any need for my younger self to worry that I hadn’t gotten there yet. It was always going to work out in the best way possible and in the least expected way, because that’s life. Or at least, that’s been my life. Sometimes it doesn’t reveal itself until you think it’s too late, but it always makes sense in the end.
And now I’m here on this airplane, surrounded by the smells of airplane food and the sounds of coughing people, I realize I’m back to that place again, that place of wondering where I’m going (not literally! I know I’m flying home!) and what’s in store next. I know now that, although it hasn’t come to fruition in all the ways I imagined as a young, naïve, and completely hopeful writer, that I am, in fact, a writer. I will always return to writing to guide me, and I will always be grateful for this modality in my life, whether it’s in supporting my own journey of healing and creativity, or that it is somehow helpful, comforting, or inspiring to another.
Beyond that, I don’t know where the journey is taking me, but I have dreams, still. I have wishes unfulfilled. The difference between one year ago, ten years ago, or twenty years ago and today, is that I have faith that it will all somehow work out. It won’t necessarily be what and how I expected it to be—that’s the only certainty—but I know it will make sense when I get there.
On that note, sweet friends, I offer you the simplest of prompts, of meditations, and of practices for this month as we all get back to our routines of school and work and (hopefully) renewed self-care, which is this: Honour The Journey. Honour what has brought you here: your past, your mistakes, the roads taken, the roads not taken, and all that it has led you to. Take a moment if you feel inclined and think about or write down three things that you can be proud of and grateful for from your past and your present. And then, take a moment to write down three things that you wish for in your future. If you drop into your intuitive heart, and out of your analytical mind, I have a feeling you will find there what is truly beckoning you forward, and what you—the many-years-from-now you—is wanting you to do today in order to get there.
If this idea speaks to you and you want to explore it further, my message this month was inspired by a meditation offered from one of my favourite meditation creators, Mindful in Minutes, on this very idea of honouring your personal journey (which is to say, your life).
I appreciate the time that you’ve spent with me this year as I’ve gotten back into the groove of writing in new and different ways. I plan to take the month of September to explore what’s calling me forward now and how I can use my own life experiences to light the way for others.
I think that’s what I’m here for, and where I’m supposed to be going.
Until next time, be so very well.
Allison