retrospective...

Maybe it's the new snowfall outside, or the mountains surrounding me, or the wide ocean insulating me from the rest of the world, but my life feels quiet and muffled today. One of the things I realized when I came here to start this quieter season of life was how much I needed exactly that -- space and time and quiet for me to process so much that had gone before...

What do I learn from looking back? From the pages of my life a year ago: "The past few days have been full of Adam. He's onboard, and I've been able to be there from admission, to the ward, to the OR -- holding him in the recovery room when he woke up, and even carrying him down to the ward. Memories for a lifetime or more are being made every day..."

Memories reach into the present... Today I got an email from Adam's waiting new mother, who heard from the orphanage that he had a seizure and a high fever yesterday. He is okay today. But my heart skipped so easily back over time...

A year ago on a beach in Sierra Leone I ended a journal with these words... "I suppose you always feel that the time you are in is the one that will change you the most. But you can't know what lies around the bend. Time -- the speed of it takes me ever so steadily toward my next destiny... "

I look back to remember... to find echoes to fill my quiet.

:: "Life is a journey, not a destination..."