Cozy-Years Old

Today is my thirty-second birthday so I only celebrated for half a minute*

OKAY. Well, today, I turn COZY-years old.

Now let me write about my favorite feeling in the world…

It’s that time I went hiking at 3 AM in the morning — total darkness, cold air. I should be in bed but instead, I am huffing and puffing from the incline. I look up and stop. Salt in the sky, glowing crystal salt. OK, we call them stars. But at that moment they seasoned everything around me they must have been salt.

It’s that time I woke up from an afternoon nap, (which often leaves me cranky) but when I opened my eyes, I hear this beautiful song playing, one I’ve never heard before. It was like being wrapped in the coziest of blankets. I don’t remember being a newborn but it must be how it felt to be swaddled in the chest of a loving parent/caregiver.

It’s that time I was on a bus going somewhere and I look out at the window and see all the people being people, all the trees being trees, all the mountains being mountains as the bus drives by and I just sit there… watching, being.

My favorite feeling in the world is only a 3-letter word.

AWE.

You know that very early morning? When it’s quiet, dark and fresh, tinged with a little strangeness?

When anything is possible but nothing is probable and everything is okay?

AWE.

This has always been my anchor that something else is out there and in here.

AWE.

Probably, most definitely what I talk about when I talk about ‘God.’

AWE.

Take away everything. Just leave me with this.

AWE.

This is what brings me back home, every time.

AWE.

I might have chased this feeling in the past. It was so special that it must be elusive, right? I realized recently that this feeling is readily accessible — in the most mundane of places, in the most ordinary of things, and in the most simple of moments. And that I can actually *cultivate* it, + carry it with me as I walk, as I live.

OY. The holy ground is.right.here.

THANK YOU for all the love. Thank you for the reminder. I am constantly in AWE (see what I did there) of how much caring and thoughtfulness there is in this world.