The past few weeks have been full to the brim. There was picking up Gabriel at Harper's Ferry and bringing him and his friends home for a big Easter celebration, followed the next day by his 18th birthday party, and the next weekend by my mother's 75th birthday party. I've been growing my private practice, supporting my students at work, waking up early to exercise, mothering my children, planning the summer, and feeling lots of feelings without much space to feel them in.
But then last Thursday evening I picked up Gabriel and his friend Emerson for one more day off the trail while they were in Pennsylvania. Early Saturday I made them dozens of pancakes, then drove them back to Hawk Mountain for a final goodbye until the trail's end in Maine. Parting on the side of the road, surrounded by new spring green leaves and crisp dappled sunshine, hugging my enormous child, my heart's elastic stretched farther than seemed reasonable.
He was happy and healthy, capable and cheerful. Adventuring forth, he embodied everything a mother could want for her child, and yet it was all I could do to hold back my tears. He knew it, and hesitated.
Go, go! I'm fine, I'm okay. Have a great day on the trail!
The tears pressed against my eyes said don't go, the tears said go, the tears said I am so proud and happy, the tears said we will flow and flow, and touch all the rivers you cross ahead.
I held them back until I couldn't see the boys anymore and got back into the car.
After my cry, I drove home through green hills and farmland, listening to the Plum Village podcast The Way Out is In. The tears came right back, in a different gentle spirit, as a monk told loving stories of Thich Nhat Hanh in the days after his stroke at age 89 that illustrated his acceptance of death, deep understanding of interbeing, and delight in the sangha, communicated clearly in his smile when he could no longer speak. He recounted how Thich Nhat Hanh used to tell his Christian friends the kingdom of heaven is right here. All you need is to listen to the birds singing, feel the sunlight on your skin, look into the beloved faces of your family and friends. It is happening, right now, all around you.
Something about the pain and tenderness of goodbyes can make a space for the stealth kingdom of heaven - normally so hidden by the noise of everyday life - to become more detectable, palpable, illuminated. I listened to the podcast, and I saw it shining through the pollen-dusted windshield of my car.
There have been irritable, rushed, angry, snapped at by strangers, frustrated by insurance, and burdened by my laptop's dying battery type moments since that morning, and in them I have sometimes remembered to try it out. I say to myself: Meagan, the kingdom of heaven is right here.
Right. In all this disaster, right here. Sometimes, when I'm hanging on by my fingernails, the sentiment just makes me laugh. But most of the time, intentionally putting those heaven goggles on works.
This new tiny practice has cracked me wider open to the poignancy of a thousand pink petals scattering the sidewalk in a glorious mess, pale new leaves above bereft of their delicate finery, already preparing for the deeper greens of summer. To the choppy waves of emotions with Beatrice on a drive to Philadelphia that eventually - magically - led to us belting along to pop songs with all the windows down, Ramona the dog in the backseat closing her eyes in the bliss of spring air streaming around the planes of her upturned snout. To my boyfriend's face in quiet profile, and a poem tacked on my office wall I haven't read in months but is just as beautiful as ever.
To the tenderness and porosity of being with my clients in their vast felt experience.
One of them, who has a long history of depression, told me that she knows something has changed inside. She is learning how precious she is, and it is revelatory. I filled up with joy, and so did she, laughing out loud together. We spent the rest of our session exploring what about therapy and her life and her relationships and her work has supported this new brilliant knowing. What set this change in motion? At the end of it all, she paused, then smiled at me, and said,
...it could just be the weather?
More laughter. Definitely could be, I said.
It sure is easier to know the kingdom of heaven in pink-and-green April than it is in brown-and-gray March. All the same. I'll take it.
