Cerrando Circulos: On Old Chapters Closing, New Chapters Opening

Yesterday was my final day at work at Boston University, where I’ve been working since May 2013.

I got to campus early and headed to Life Alive to have some coffee and finish up a couple thank you notes I had yet to write for my team. And as I was sitting there at the bar, waiting for my coffee, writing my note to my mentor Sara Rimer, Michael Kiwanuka’s song Home Again came on. In that exact moment, I had literally been thinking: It has been so helpful for me to have a woman like Sara in my life, especially with my mother gone.

That song came on and I was knocked off my feet. It was like being swept away by a wave.

I first heard that song years ago, right after my mother died. I remember it so clearly. I was sitting on a bean bag chair in Restoration Hardware and it came on. These lyrics pierced my heart like an arrow:

Home again
Home again
One day I know
I'll feel home again
Born again
Born again
One day I know
I'll feel strong again

In that time of my life, I was so broken and so lost. I missed my mother so much and I had so many regrets that wracked my heart about what I could have done differently while she was alive. And I remember hearing the words of that song and just longing to feel that way again someday. Home again. Strong again. Feeling so very far away—like I was looking at that state of being from a distant shore.

Seven years later, sitting at the counter of Life Alive, it came on. And I realized I felt that way. Home. Strong. So grateful for where I am in my life, who I have in my life, and where I am and where I’m heading.

I have literally never heard that song in public any other time but those two—Restoration Hardware and Life Alive, yesterday.

And this is why I believe in everything. Believe in magic, believe my mother is still shining up there and keeping tabs on me, believe in the starry connections, fairy dust, the whole thing.

In a moment the light switched off and it was only stars for miles.

On Lafayette Road, Strength from Firewater

I drove on that stretch of Lafayette, between Tidewater Campground and Life Storage, where the road bisects the marsh. On my left, the ocean lay a mile or two off, on my right, forest. It was morning, and the water of the marsh caught the light and reflected it back, orange fire. Everything glowed and it was so so quiet.

This was a moment that entered my heart and infused it with the strength and magic I would need. It was all so beautiful, and so available to me, right here, miles from home, on a morning drive.

I had entered that year repeating over and over, I just have to get stronger. And I wasn’t quite sure why, at times, those words, that mantra, rumbled through my heart over and over.

But I know when I saw the moonstone water diffusing the fire of the sky, it breathed power and strength into me. Much needed. Strength I would draw on a few short months later.

Hachoooooo: Simple remedies for a sinus infection/chest cold

I was going to be damned if I completely missed out on the long run this morning with the bunch of folks training for Chesterfield.

I’d been hitting the cold/sinus infection/whatever it was hard with 5-minute steam bowls throughout the day, probiotics. But on Friday, when I was texting with Steph, she reminded me of the power of the essential oils, which she uses for everything. Why didn’t I think of that? I wondered. Essential oil books literally make up approximately 1/10 of my library at this point. I rubbed a mixture of olive oil, peppermint, lavender and sweet orange on my chest and, I kid you not, almost immediately, the wheezing in my chest disappeared.

When I saw Steph that night at a friend’s house for the Phish web cast, she pulled out her Vera Bradley bag of essential oil goodies, all from doTERRA, that she’d promised to bring. She recommended eucalyptus, just right under the nose, as well as the Breathe mix, which I applied to my wrists. I’d avoid eucalyptus straight under the nose next time—I’d mix it with a carrier oil and put under the nose next time.

Between the steam bowls, probiotics, dairy-free diet, fresh air (just bike and walk, no running while it was in my chest) and the essential oil treatments, I woke up this morning with wheeze-free lungs. I’m not feeling perfect but I was able to get out for a 5-6 miler (…I didn’t have my watch and the run was a little discombobulated) and I’m stoked. I’m definitely still coughing some, but it’s a drier cough, and feeling on the road to recovery.
Bonus for the day: Maureen’s suggestion to check out Senita Athletics (per their Web site “Stylish, affordable active wear.”