Winter awakens in me the quiet understory of what is necessary in my life. The past year of learning to live without my own mother in this world began with a chaotic journey of change. Grief is a mystery unfolding. The learning not to pick up the phone, sharing photos, planning visits, texting funny notes, remembering that it is all different now. In the learning - at the beginning - I went through a massive cleaning out in my own home - again. I have done this before. However, this time felt different. One of the first books I read when I was just 13 years old was, Walden by Henry David Thoreau. It is a book that I hold dearly. While I understand that it is not a perfect framework for today in some ways - it is also a book of its time. It grabbed hold of me and never really let go. I held onto this ethos as I began cleaning out my home shortly after my mother passed through to the next world.

I systematically went through every room and began getting rid of furniture, clothing, shoes, saved paperwork, books, extras of anything, things no longer wanted. I put some of it on the side of the road and folks came and picked it up. Furniture was dismantled that was past its use for anyone. It is an interesting process to see how more freedom comes with the letting go of items. Perhaps a bit of a Swedish Death cleaning. I do have a great grandfather that came here from Sweden. I think my mother would be pleased that I was making my life easier - more simplified. She had been here when I had a go around awhile back. She had given us some things before she died. I liked that she didn’t wait until she was gone.

In the cleaning out I thought of my mother and cried and kept going. Somehow it helped me in the beginning days. I had something to focus on in the crying days. The crying days have not left though they are more random and at sudden moments of remembering from somewhere beyond. Like a thought whisper comes in and pulls at the sinew of heart muscle. Involuntary grief-slaughter is what it feels a bit like. How could she really have vanished just like that?

I know these feelings are as old as time. As old as humans loving one another. When we clean things out of the way, a layer of beauty opens up that wasn’t noticed before. A piece of paper holding a scent of an old friend. A piece of jewelry takes one back to a moment sitting and dreaming. Maybe that contra dance shoe reminds you of just how young and pretty you really were - twirling around the dance floors of Vermont. Yet, the nostalgia is really only my heart singing loudly. Pain and grief are not over ridden by getting rid of - anything. It is carried along in deep pockets of missing - sung out to open fields and oceans and sky’s filled with remembering. We don’t have to carry it alone. Our belongings will carry us until we no longer feel the need to belong to a possession. A door opens up, we just Be Longing. The longing will always be there. Do we choose to transform it into something more comfortable?

Sideways glance toward a wind whisper or a shadow bending. There is a heart outside of me. My own memories and heart struggle can come by from time to time - showing me a world that is carried heavily and mightily. It is brave to keep walking forward through and with grief. Lessening shows up on the roadways. Magnification corners the edges held by tears. Laughter as is if my own mother is inside of me filling me up with joy. Grief is a companion that sidles up beside us and settles in for a long journey of living. This is not a well of getting over or getting through. This well of grief invites us to look deeper into the dark. Those places that formed us long ago in a quiet place - beating hearts - with my own mother. This is what cleaning out has brought to me. A sort of tumbling inside a matrix of stars that shimmer in cotillions - waiting for hands to grab hold.

May the breath of heaving, heavily, catch the sparkle of the deep - simplicity. I feel. I see. I know. I hold out my hand to the mystery.