"Why am I telling you this?"

"Last night I was uploading the photos from my trip to Tennessee and there are some giant gaps in what is portrayed versus those things I will remember. Mostly, my daughter and I took turns taking shots of each other, probably because neither of us likes our picture taken, and the only way to prevent that is to be the one with the camera :-P

But what about that tumbling mill stream on the way up to Astrid's place? And the way the light hit the trees, and the rolling hills, and the river. And the Tennessee fencelines, and the barns and the narrow twisty roads. The light is different there, softer, diffuse, warmer.

And the incongruity of Christmas lights when the lawns are still green, and the time we got lost in Loudon county, and how near the trashy trailer folk live to my friends' gorgeous new lakefront home. I don't really have a photo of me and Paul together, and only one of Astrid. None of Judi, or James or Tracey or Diane or Virginia. Just lots of silly ones of Juliana eating and Paul's daughter playing dress-up. None of the sunsets or the kooky old buildings tucked away between the commercial areas, none of Diane's hand-dyed silk scarves or the lush colors in her home.

I know why, though. Awhile ago someone here said something to me about standing in the middle of my life and truly feeling it. Experiencing every nuance, the smells and the energy of the moment, immersing myself rather than observing it. And that's what I've been doing. I don't really need photographs for those moments, because I'll never forget them. It means it's harder to share with others, but really, how do you share that joy? I hope that each of my dear friends has a multitude of moments like that every day, experiences that are so precious and vivid you will never forget them.

I felt so washed by the millions of tiny instants of pure light this last week that I sort of crashed yesterday in withdrawal from them. Everything hurt more without them there, and I know I overreacted to Emily's rejection of me when I got home. And the duality of having pieces of my mother heart scattered across such a long distance, I can scarcely bear it, especially realizing it's going to be much longer in duration than I had hoped. But even in that dissonance, there is joy. I'm kind of odd about pain; it's so very close to ecstasy for me. And in this way, I know it means that my emotions are running very deep, and that is in truth a measure of how I've managed to open up and let things flow I'd always held contained before.

On New Year's Eve, I sat with three other women and chose words to write on flash paper. I chose really hard words to burn; it took a bit of time to work my courage up to form the letters. But I did it, and lit it, and it flashed so bright and brief, not so much as an ash left to fall in the bowl. As if it's so easy to let go of doubt, and uncertainty, and hesitation. There's a really giant empty space inside me where they resided; I hadn't realized they took up so much room. And just like I did after burning man, I feel fragile but strong in holding open that space for something important, in not filling it with anything unintended, in not allowing others to fill it for me. So maybe that's it, this insecure hollowness inside. I need to feel braver about what I choose. I have some ideas, but I'm ---- oh god, I burned that, didn't I?"

--Written by...Melissa Cameron...my mother.