An old oak tree at Shelby beckoned me near, away from where I tend to sit, and immediately, straight ahead, the first quarter moon greeted me as she woke, starting her day at 3pm. A fish in the pond startled me, rushing across the surface of the water in a way I haven’t seen before. A squirrel, deftly tracing the tree branch, perching, acknowledged me from above. Acorns are born in cups, much like a nest, and the squirrel depends on the tree for nurture and sustenance.
I found myself feeling more feminine this afternoon with all of my tending. I feel luteal and introverted, layered, intentional. My home is a bit cleaner, and I washed my hair. I sat on the porch with the dogs. Mila sunbathed while Tom sniffed around. I remember a younger Fran who sat out in the yard often because it felt true, and like the squirrel on the branch, I felt supported there by everything that came before me, every unseen root wrapping around the ground beneath me.
Tomorrow marks two years of my divorce being final, kind of like my own independence day. I think about liberation all the time and see all acts of returning home as a microcosm of the whole. Retrieval of what’s been stolen. Reclamation of what truly belongs.
My body was reclaimed that year. She deeply knows certain forms of displacement and isolation. She knows the feeling of having basic needs and desires used as weapons of physical and psychological harm. She knows how it feels to have your vulnerability used against you, your hospitality and patience used to trap you and disconnect you from your humanity.
My body knows the pain of resilience, the anger of being on the other side of abuse, the lingering paranoia of a quiet afternoon at home. She knows the numbing dissociation that doesn’t just vanish because you’re objectively in safe environments and healthy relationships.
And yet, I’m learning how to be here. I’m noticing every shade of green in the grass and the forest. I know the oak trees well and the tulip poplars and the pecans and the hackberries. I’m listening for the bluejays and the cardinals, and I know when the house wren is singing. I know I’m singing with everything that sings and the ground can feel when I am at peace. The land knows that I reciprocate care, that I do my best to seek restoration and balance, harmony with all that surrounds.
I am learning that everything needs a home, and that I can be a part of the return back home; of being home within myself; of being home outside of myself. Remember that very old story of the earth being inherently good and very good, and humans being a part of it all?
I’m doing all of this for the first time.
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