Back to Center
I started this Substack about a year ago after returning from a writing retreat in North Carolina. The intention was to write about our adventures as a family but mostly to start sharing chapters from Ella’s book, Pawsitive Perspectives. At the time, the book was just a pie-in-the-sky idea, and it didn’t have a name yet. Once I started writing the lessons I learned from Ella, it became clear that the chapters needed to be written from her perspective – she was the Queen after all.
Through this platform, I’ve shared many of the 40 lessons that make up the book. I have more to share and will still post those, but I’ll also start sharing more from my two current dogs/fellow adventurers – Mala and Tessie.
I’ll also occasionally share the poems that seem to seep out of me from time to time. I happened to be in North Carolina again a couple of weeks ago leading a yoga retreat at the place I checked out when I visited last year. While I was sitting on a bench under the trees next to a creek, I let my pen move across the page and this is the result. I hope you enjoy it.
For nearly 20 years I’ve been living away from this place
Where the dew collects on blades of grass,
Humidity gives a heaviness to the air
and frizz to my hair.
I headed west in search of space,
of dreams I didn’t know I had.
In Colorado, I found a sense of peace,
of home within myself.
I hike the peaks,
paddled the lakes,
and biked the endless paths and roads.
I breathed in the oxygen-starved air,
and exhaled the burdens I carried –
the shame of my mistakes,
the labels I once proudly wore like armor.
I nearly died.
Then I let go.
I shed my old skin like a snake
and tried on a new cloak,
but that didn’t fit either.
So, I kept exploring, learning, tapping in.
At heart I was always a teacher,
a writer – they were in my soul.
Now, at the surface.
Everything that led me back –
back East where the canopy of the trees
close in and block out the rain,
where the moss beneath my feet
provides a sense of comfort.
I’m here for a short while.
A remembrance, an homage
to where I came from.
The sun has broken through
and the clouds have burned off
to reveal a beautiful September day.
The creek plays its tune,
a soft gurgle and babble,
while the crickets add their pitch.
Familiar sights and sounds
that were the soundtrack of my youth
as I sat on moss-covered rocks with my brother
and we tossed leaves and acorns into the creek.
Soon I’ll return to my beloved mountains
where I’ve made my life.
I’ll relish in the cool, dry air.
I’ll gaze out my window
at the evergreens standing tall
and look up at the wide open sky full of stars
and be grateful.
Grateful for what was and what is.
I’ll wander up and down the winding trails
making my way to the creek to get a taste of my youth.
I’ll remember the little girl
who made art from what I found in nature
and who used my mother’s old textbooks
to “teach” my dolls how to read and do arithmetic.
Eventually, I’ll go back home,
pick up a pen,
write a new yoga class
or craft a story or poem,
past and present colliding,
to remind me I’ve come full circle.
Back to myself,
My soul,
My center,
My heart.