dis located

so. i find myself in dublin. the auld stomping ground. but only for one night. i'm en route to County Waterford for a rather extravagant version of a classic irish wedding. 18th century mansion converted to a luxury hotel. for four days of celebrations. my youngest step brother is getting married. so colour me getting into the swing of things with a G&T in hand.

this has been a beautiful Christmas thus far. peacefilled from midnight mass at Clonard monastery on christmas eve. filled with good friends. lounging by the fireplace. feeling comfort. and warmth. and goodwill.

and disconnected. from my surroundings and from myself...i am divided in two down some unseen but very felt fault line. a piece of me... not here. but out there. somewhere. living a whole new adventure of a life that has already begun and yet, not yet... all of this is to come... that is i guess what it means to be a beginning. here at the start we have more to come than has been before...

but then, as he says, there is a beauty in having someone to miss... i guess this is a kind of privilege. a gift for sure... i feel connected as much as i feel i am missing... having someone to miss is having someone... and i find myself shaking my head in wonderment as to how all this came to be... all this... with so much yet to come... i have no real sense of whether i chose this or it was chosen for me... i'm not sure i even need a distinction... something is profoundly alligned in these days as much as they are time (zones) out of joint...

i feel like i've come home. and immediately plucked from it. i feel like adventure waiting to happen... but it is already happening... i was already home, and already adventure... but now i find myself on a path with another... the lesson of these days is how to live in the present. how to focus on what is here and now. when so much of me wants to be elsewhere... present in other moments... other places... to be mindful of all that one has... and be gratitudinal to my very core for the homecoming and the adventure of who i am, of who he is and of what we are and may become if the fates allow... the past requires me to take each fragile gentle step in turn... and each step is meant to be lived for itself even as they bring us closer together... the journey is everything... moments stringing together... to make a future on which to look back... may i always be gratitudinal to be sojourning with another soul like his, even now, with so much distance... because distance is only miles... these days apart are only time... and where there is profound encounter... deep resonance of souls... where there is love unfolding... there is no distance at all... but only possibility... and the eternal yes that we can only hear when we are truly present...

patience is a virtue. why do virtues always seem to test us...?

LB,x