written august 2024.

At the end of my dream, in the Dallas airport waiting for the last leg taking us back downunder is the chance to reflect on this ride.

The sisters holding me the way I came to them, all strange and funky, wired, and emotional and with a husband in tow they had never met.

The beach wedding and the dancing that failed to materialise there but did happen later at the 42^nd BlissFest under our hot northern sun.

   

My parents. Worrying me and comforting me and feeding me and sharing their lives and sadness and coffee. 

My brother in his other world, one I cannot enter, even though I try. 

  Coming back was better and worse than I imagined. 

My country is better and worse than I remembered. 

As confusing and infuriating and welcoming as ever. 

 

The memories are all there, this time I can confront more of them.

The road had me remembering all the way back to the first time I left my parents, and all the people and mistakes.

The road had me in tears, the first time we drove into the mountains and stopped to smell the ponderosas I was overwhelmed with love and regret and longing and gratitude. 

  The land I loved first. The land I now realize that I love most. 

The government, the people, which happen to be reflective of each other in ways we do not like to accept, are both obstacles and bridges back to this land. 

  To say I miss the culture is a gross understatement. 

I pine for it. 

Like a child with no perspective, I focus my discontent to the country I must wait in until I can come home for good as if it is a prison I must endure. 

From the first moment we landed, I realized that Australia can never compare and maybe I can stop trying to compare them and let go of that anger. 

   

My parents.

So much of the angst has faded. They still drive me crazy, but I enjoy it now. 

 I am proud of them. 

 

Right now, I am simply overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with gratitude. The kind of gratitude that knocks me down and leaves me face planted in the grass. How?? How have I been so lucky??? 

Lucky for my family and my hometown, lucky for my body and mind, lucky to be given such a country at such a time. Lucky for my husband, lucky for my friends. Lucky for my opportunities, lucky lucky, lucky. 

   I don’t know what to do with this. The depth of not deserving this, the knowing how few humans have ever had this luck. 

   And so that’s where I find my mind. That’s where I find my heart. 

Yes, I cried when I went in my last American grocery store. Yes, I cried when I said goodbye to my friends, yes, I cried saying goodbye to my parents, yes, I cry thinking about how long it may be before I see these mountains and oceans again, before I hear these wild rivers and swim in these great lakes, before I hear this country music in the bars, before I drive on these roads. 

Does that make it sweeter?

I said as such to anyone who would hear me. Be grateful.

Be grateful for the Rockies, for Yellowstone and Rainier National parks, for the Mississippi and the Missouri and the Colorado rivers. Be grateful for Dodge Challengers and Dually trucks and wolves and bison and coyotes and salmon and grizzlies and black bears and Canada geese and robins and Chicago and Denver and Austin and New York and Boston and Seattle and Detroit and Las Vegas and Los Angeles and Albuquerque and Durango and Fairbanks and New Orleans and for the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico.

Be grateful for the Bill of Rights, for our good neighbors Canada and Mexico, for jazz and hip hop and country and folk and rock and roll. 

Don’t stop there. Keep going. And going. And going.

Leave behind the fear of Republicans and Democrats and the Supreme Court. 

Leave behind fear. 

I say it to myself and to anyone. 

Be grateful.