The Absent

Hoh Rain Forest, Olympic NP (October 2022)

I have been absent for most of this year, however one would define it.  

Absent from others, absent from my practice, absent from my mind, absent from living.  

I look back on the last nine months and all I see is absence.  

The most painful absence being that of my brother's.

I lost my brother in March.

Since then, I haven't been able to move through this world quite the same.

I haven't felt the same.  

How precarious it all is.   

I am coping.  I am writing.  I am learning how to breathe in the sweet air again.

 

'Til then, I leave 2022 with this: 

“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

 

Thank you, Jamie Anderson, for articulating so eloquently the murmurs of this here heart.

-OH