Beginnings

Today begins the month of March in the year of our Lord 2011. Today I also begin my foray into the blogging sphere. I don't know why it's taken me so long to get here. I guess if I look at the patterns within my 27 years, I find that it's taken me a while to do anything: two years in pre-kidergarten, a year to get my driver's license, three semesters before declaring a major, 25 years before truly discovering Neil Young, 13 hours to drive from my Catskill home to a new life in the southern Appalachians...even now, it's taking me a bit of time to formulate my thoughts and write something coherent. Amidst it all, all my comings and goings, steps and stumbles, maybe yeses and maybe nos, here I am- right where I should be in this moment. And it's a good moment.

I am waiting for apricot-almond muffins to bake. I just paused to open the oven door and peek at my rising confections. I think this dozen will be something great. I've gotten into the pleasant habit of baking muffins for our Wednesday breakfast at work. Unlike most modern workers in this country, my work week begins on Wednesdays and ends exactly eight days later, after spending the entire week with clients and coworkers backpacking through the oldest mountains in the world. I'm sure to look back on my time in wilderness therapy as something wild and foreign. I've come to learn about myself in a more whole and vulnerable way since taking the job last July. I've come to recognize my bravery, stubbornness, passive-aggression, and penchant for routine and ritual. I've also come to a new understanding of my spirituality. (A subject I'm sure for later posts, especially as the Lenten season is soon upon us.)

I should mention that the name for this blog is a Gaelic phrase meaning "soul friend." It is with these feeble musings and letters that I attempt to unwrap the sacred moments of this life and celebrate universal human themes such as friendship, solitude, love, death, and worship. Apricot muffins seem like an appropriate place to start.