To Go On As We Never Have

"It is impossible for you to go on as you were before, so you must go on as you never have."
-Cheryl Strayed

And here I sit. Trying to find...what?
Myself?
My grief?
Love?
Kreed?
My soul.
I sit high up on a ridge, letting nature consume me. Desperately seeking connection. Feeling. My tears fall softly and nature catches them. The tree's keep the secrets of my grief. This ridge gives me my feelings back. I sit in the world and just be. Nothing else exists in these moments but me, my body, my heart, my soul. Where is my soul?

I think of Kreed and the way he craved nature and the way he could just exist moment to moment. And he taught me that too- but I seem to have forgotten that lesson.

But- love- his teachings of love- I feel every day. As Carie and I navigate this life without him and carry this burden of grief, we still love.
Each other.
Our life.
Him.
And every day we breathe.
To keep ourselves present.
To stay above the currents of grief.
To find solace in each other.
And to remember-
Him.
I sit on this ridge and just exist. For myself. For him. For her.
And remember my soul can still exist. And I breathe.
In.
Out.
He is no longer with us- now we must exist for ourselves. And decide. What will we do with our one and wild life. And I think- Kreed taught us it's okay to live this life wild.

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
- Mary Oliver

"To be fully human is to be wild. Wild is the strange pull and whispering wisdom. It’s the gentle nudge and the forceful ache. It is your truth, passed down from the ancients, and the very stream of life in your blood. Wild is the soul where passion and creativity reside, and the quickening of your heart. Wild is what is real, and wild is your home."
- Victoria Erickson