Venturing Boldly: A Love Story

I have not fully understood the impact, if any, of the Occupy movement, but I admire the passion of those who believe it is a way for their voice to be heard. I pass the Occupy Raleigh island encampment on Hillsborough Street this week, as I have twice every weekday through the fall and the winter and the spring, and observe that they have folded their tents that provided shelter, piled up the remaining wood crates that fueled their fires against the cold over the winter, abandoned the cut logs they sat around the fire on, locked up the port-a-potties, and gone home. I am amazed by the passion that kept them there for so many months. They ventured out of whatever places they had been holed up in, and lived out loud.

On Tuesday, North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment that states for the record that all people are not created equal; that all people do not have the right to pursue happiness−at least not in a legal sense. In short, there is only one way to be. The love and marriages some North Carolinians might have if it were allowed, would make, apparently, a mockery of those of other North Carolinians; and the majority of voters are afraid of what that might mean for their own marriages. I guess. I don’t understand that; but the passions on both sides of the issue have flowed liberally for the past many months. People who had been minding their own lives, ventured out to speak passionately for the lives of others, and what should or should not be legal under the constitution. And that speaking out, that dialogue−even when it sounds more like the rant of crazy people−is what changes the world; eventually for the better, but not today. Today we are a little bit worse off, but love and justice will prevail. It just takes such a long time.

For the past five years, my passion has been my garden. I have dug into the depths of the earth. I have pulled weeds and pruned the overgrowth. I have rescued plants buried under ivy and returned them to the light. I have hauled bricks and flagstone and stones, many of which I also found buried, relicts of a previous life. I have planted new life. I have watched things grow; and I have watched some die, either because their time had come or because they didn’t receive the nutrients they needed to thrive. I have taken pictures and seen in the photos on my computer what was not evident to the naked eye. I have discovered the joy of watching and waiting. I have hurt, and I have healed with the garden’s help. I have written about my garden and the lessons learned from it, and in that I have uncovered new passion in myself. In writing, I begin to find out what I know, and give it a voice. I have shared my garden and my home with friends. I have loved passionately.

When I bought my house, and its overgrown gardens, I had no idea of the venture I was about to embark on. I wasn’t looking to become a gardener. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. In fact, I believe had I gone looking for some particular place, I never would have found this place. It found me. And now I find myself ready for a new venture. But this time I am going to a particular place. Home. Though it has been 35 years since I left the Pacific Northwest, it has never ceased to be the place I love with unequaled passion. The Northwest is the love story of my life and it is calling me home.

I have known for many months this time was coming, and I was not ready until now to write here about it. And it still feels like a bold venture to say it out loud. It makes it real. Remember my One Little Word from the beginning of the year? “Venture.” My word is venture. So, in 2-½ weeks I will leave my home and garden. After some time with dear friend Laura, Smudge the Cat and I will leave Raleigh on June 24 and head into a bold new venture.

Leaving friends, who have made a valued place for me in their lives, is the hardest part. There will be another home; there will be another garden. Yes, there will be other friends. But friends are not replaced; only added to. When one leaves a place, they leave also that which has been their heart. I can’t even talk about that yet. There is much that I will miss about North Carolina, and there is much that I won’t. I will save both for another post.

Pico Iyer said, “I left one kind of home to find another, to discover what resided in me and where I resided most fully.” My friend, Charly, who returned to her native Colorado a few years ago, said, “I returned to who I am and more.” I think I was most fully alive in Washington, with its “verdant forests green, caressed by silvery stream,” (the Washington State song); and of course, its snow-capped mountains. Washington is what the color green smells like. Blue comes into its fullness in the sky and water there. But I was barely an adult when I left. I am different now. The venture, what I look forward to, is rediscovering−or perhaps discovering for the first time−who I am and can be in my heart home.

Venturing boldly. Finding what you are passionate about and living it. Isn’t that what it means to fully be alive? Isn’t that what it means to love?

don’t ask yourself what the
world needs; ask yourself
what makes you come alive.
and then go and do that.
because what the world
needs is people who have
come alive.
    -howard thurman