Surfacing

I got a late start this morning, due to a late night. Don and I were in Leiden last night for a results meeting on this latest round of genetic tests on our growth and development delayed youngest son, Andrew. It was a meeting which is best summed up with the phrase "no news is good news" as we have come to call these visits with the geneticist. Nothing obvious showing. No known cause at the root of his issues. However, instead of leading to more questions or uneasiness, this particular meeting left me with a unwavering form of peace.

For the moment anyway, I am breathing easy about the prospects and future of this little man.

And I am still from the inside out.

Perhaps that is resignation to the obvious. I like to think of it as acceptance of the present.


At any rate, when we stepped out of the hospital corridors, we stepped into a serene summer evening. The sky was clear, the sun just waning toward sunset, and the air was dry and warm. Rather than clamber aboard train and tram toward home we decided to linger in Leiden for a few hours. When it was time to return home, it was quite late, and as a matter of fact--with Don picking up his bike at Central Station to ride home--I was the lone rider on the #3 tram for the last few stops before reaching my neighborhood.

It doesn't often happen that I am out this late, or on my own at all, but each time I am I like to breathe a little deeper, notice a little more. Last night I once again acknowledged to myself just what a gem of a life I lead. As I took the short walk from the tram stop to my home, I listened to my new boots strike the footpath with a steady clapping rhythm.

I gazed up toward the flat building which towers over the houses of my neighborhood and smiled at the sight of lamp-lit windows with unique displays on each ledge.

I admired my neighbors' gardens filled with summer flowers, red gardenia spilling out of containers displayed in nearly every yard or hanging in baskets from balconies.

Holland is such a lovely place, so quaint in so many ways. So safe, and so secure. I can't remember a time in the US when I felt perfectly content to stroll darkened streets alone in the wee hours of morning; yet this is common here in The Netherlands. It is a country which boasts virtually no violent crime. I feel confident sending my children off to errands at the local shops without me. Our two oldest have far more freedom to wander here than was granted to them in Phoenix.

I am grateful that we are in a place I can offer that to them. And give that to myself as well.

This morning when I woke I was so pleased to note the feelings of the night had not faded in sleep. As I rolled out my yoga mat to practice alongside my husband this morning I was filled with that same sense of peace and contentment. This sense that everything, everything, is going to be okay.

What a way to start the day.

sun salutation
breathe deep. inhale the new day
exhale the nights' sleep*

*You knew there would be a haiku!
This is going to Leslie's contest too.