Missing Pieces

And even though the moment passed me by
I still can't turn away
Cause all the dreams you never thought you'd lose
Got tossed along the way
And letters that you never meant to send
Get lost or thrown away 

Sometimes this song gets stuck in my head, and lately i've been thinking of this a lot. I am rereading Hannah Coulter for the first time since i read it . . . six years (?!) ago now, and I keep thinking that I lost something somewhere, somehow. I got spoiled in Dallas, living so close to people (even though I still hardly saw anyone, it seems: or, to rephrase, I didn't even come close to taking full advantage of what I had), and I let it spark a fear in me--that fear of becoming isolated, because i *don't* make friends easily, and of being alone. I yearn to regain something i never had, something I think I've wanted my whole life--communion with the land without sacrificing community. 

but there is a love of the land i had, a love of nature and outside and sunshine and cold and rain that used to be unquenchable in me, and it somehow atrophied--maybe being in the city, maybe seeing sunrise sunset always in context of skyscrapers and smog and city traffic, maybe through despairing loss followed by ethereal europe and then a shaky transition where 14 18 21 and 25 were all the same thing, and then came love and healing and sons and so much city, and shopping and coffee and some vague sort of cosmopolitan (mmmm)-urbanite something-or-other. what happened? to:
simplicity hardwork weeding earth quietness slow solitude contentment open spaces night sky (i love f-burg, but my soul aches for stars) animals!
the sacrifice of working with and for the rest of creation, to elevating it and living in it and finding sanctification in it. i miss these things. most of all, i miss that self.