Sabbath

One of my recent fascinations with a landscape is the color pallete it uses. Here in a saturated Shenandoah spring the world is blue. Blue mountains with a lush green foreground, the sky a hazy light blue.
As sun sets these mountains ripple into a blue sea, wave upon ridge. It's thick this evening. Still not hot enough to be oppressive, but moisture so visible you could part the air like curtains. And I've come to Hawksbill Creek.
Fathers walk with shoulder riding daughters, middle aged couples power walk beside one another - with ear buds in. Little town - it's a quiet village.
Sitting in the concrete pour spout just above the creek I can see a bird the size of my fist splashing about. I wish I could identify more eastern wildlife. A few key things I know - mountain laurel are radiant right now, honey suckle are scenting the hillsides, and Maddie says the size of blackberry flowers are promising for fruit in a few months.
There are so few moments in my life in Luray to sit back and absorb. Ours is a busy life of 1.5 activities, new students, shifting school groups, and enough sleep as we can muster. That part I am not sad to leave.
But turning new life chapters frequently presents itself with hopes and fears, and lately I have many fixated thoughts on - "what next?". As if we ever really know.
I've been thinking a lot about passion and joy. How my frequency and capacity for it has shifted so much the past 10 years And how lately, in what feels like the brink of walking deeper into bright happy places the dark stormy sides of me tug to not cross that threshold.
I guess we're currently in the middle of a month of hard work and busy weekends. Between that, a looming new chapter, and all the unanswered questions I suppose I've worked myself into a place with the Mean Reds.
I suppose this dusky creek is my Tiffany's. The only thing to calm me down. The quiet proud look of it- nothing bad could happen here. But then again, I guess Audrey's feelings about a jewelry store don't exactly relate to Bek and a creek. Last week this creek was flooded - something bad DEFINITELY could've happened here, but maybe for me it's more important to be in a place with the capacity for great calm or great turbulence and feel fluid with it.
Mint, chamomile and freshwater funk mix with a distant cigarette and my subdued lime-coconut lotion.
Steve asked me this week why I love to be outside. Without much thought I told him I love the wildness and freedom I have there. It's been strange to me in this Luray job how infrequently I feel wild or free. I hope the youngins I work with feel that.
My prayer is that whatever comes after June there will be laughter, reflection, business, quiet times, and that love which is present will overcome fear and hurt from the past.

And that a river runs through it.