The rain is coming down, every tree branch, every plant leaf a slolam course for fat drops racing each the other to the earth. The grey sky has no texture, both bright and dark to the eye. Bare alders look like blood vessels and capillaries jutting into the sky and then abruptly ending without warning or cause.

A duck quacks loud and annoyed. He clearly woke up on the wrong side of the pond. He’s been kvetching all day.

I’m sitting in the leather chair, knees curled up, feet resting on the matching hassock. Over my legs, I have a thick fuzzy brown blanket that’s doing a lovely job of keeping me warm. Paul’s at his computer. His feet are resting on the table’s supports underneath, his feet moving up and down as though pumping an invisible organ. His mouse hand taps out that rhythm, fast and percussive, that he always taps out when he’s programming. In the bedroom, Amira is either awake or asleep. I don’t know. I’m guessing awake.

Tova’s asleep on his bed with a remaining piece of chewed cardboard under his nose. There is a light snore whispering with each breath. Muta jumps briefly when I move to look at him. He quickly settles back in. He weighs less than 8 lbs. Still he’s taking up the whole couch.

The sun must have set behind the curtain of grey. Suddenly, there is depth and contrast in the sky. Darker clouds in front of lighter, and lighter overlapping darker.

There goes the duck again. Quack-kvetch-a-quack-quack!

This is the first day I’ve sat down to write in months. The process feels wobbly. Much has happened over the last while and I want to try to begin the work of writing it. Seismic changes on my internal landscape and geography have formed new valleys and mountains in my soul. My spirit soars. It reminds me of the fearsome, breath-taking views at Glacier Nat’l Park. There too, my spirit grows larger than me. It is probably the only time that I’d say it is okay that I can’t breathe. Well, I can breathe… only in gasps and swallows of awe.

As I’m writing, it occurs to me that my life is bigger, freer and open to unlimited possibility in a way it never has been before. What has been years in the making has finally happened. Last year, I finally released my need to hang onto what had become the scraps and tattered remains of my Christianity. There probably is a book to write filled with what took me from there to here. It’s a memoir spanning 20 years, if not 30. I won’t start an outline right away though - as I’m sure it would be an interesting read to an audience of, oh, one. But, this last year, finally… FINALLY severed that last thin and tenuous thread. I was released, free. And, at the risk of making a bad pun, Thank God! Free!

I have to believe that the timing of this is exactly what it should be. I have to put away the temptation of wishing it had happened 10-15 years before now. Yet my journey was and is just that - my journey.It’s the perfect time line and the perfect outcome.

Hence, the new land - new, foreign mountains and valleys. It’s thrilling with a chaser of “Where do I go now? No path looks familiar, nothing looks like anything I’ve seen before.” I’m looking for new trail maps, guides and traveling companions. I already found some. Not surprisingly (when I think about it), they were next to me waiting all along. They were with me, next to me - waiting, speaking, and loving me. They’ve been here, even before my eyes, ears and heart were aware they were. What a gift to see them now. Constant. Eternal. Loving. And. Right There!

It’s like the view of my day, my life. The rain, my family, the duck and the sky. It’s always been there, whether I took notice or not. I hope my language and understanding will become more facile as I go. Suffice it to say, for now, NOW that I’m looking, I’m transformed by it all.