Dear Self

Dear Self,

Remember when your little band poured tired and overwhelmed into the taxi at Glasgow airport the day before the start of our walk; when you thought to yourself "Man, I hope this taxi driver is an anomaly. He talks SO MUCH."

What you were feeling in that moment was not excitement or confidence about leading a group of women writers across the vast Scottish Highlands, but rather that you had made a huge mistake. The idea of discovering something new in a long-distance walking writing retreat -- the central goal of your thesis -- was just plain silly. Walking to inspire writing is an age old tradition.

You found it hard to ignore the chorus of voices in your head -- those daemons jumped on your thought train like hobos going south for the winter. They were a noisy bunch of judges:

You are not a writer, or a teacher, or a leader. Not really. You are not good enough to do this. This is stupid. This is costly. Why have you set these ladies up for pain or injury? Joe is alone at home, left to fix and pack up your house for sale. Isn't this walk a little selfish? What is your walk is rained out? What if someone gets hurt -- they are all over 50! What if the accommodations are not nice enough to meet everyone standards? What are everyone’s standards, anyway? What the fuck are you doing?

It seems to me that every journey you begin, dear Self, starts with self-doubt.

Bravo to you for staring that useless doubt down.

You have tools to mediate the cacophony. There was a time when you would have laid down and given in to them. Instead, you sat down that first night and moved through the meditation you'd chosen for this journey. Although the women traveling with your didn't know you were holding space for them that way, yet, doing so set the stage for them to reach whatever discovery or healing might be awaiting them on the page 4,000 miles from home. Stated or unstated, each writer, including you, came in part, for healing. Why else would you walk a difficult road?

"You don’t walk the road, the road walks you."

That mantra that first night was just the reminder: All you have ever needed, and will ever need, it to have faith in the road you are. Let it walk you. Let it walk them. You are never really in control.

You deserve the warm confidence and gratitude you feel right now you take in each face in the writing circle tonight. Magic happened here. And you, my Self, were the facilitator.

Wet but not weary on the Way.

Here at the end, I am glad you now see that you made the right decision for your thesis and the right decision for your soul in taking this walk. I hope you know also that participating was the right decision for each woman who decided to come with you. However it happened, this was exactly the right group for this project. With individual idiosyncrasies, and frustrations, and differences in style, the group became a microcosm of the larger community in which you, and they, live.

Last night you were asked to look up further on the road and ponder the question "Who are you following?" You wrote about your grandmother because she’s with you all the time, especially in times of challenge and joy.

My beloved aunts teaching & learning a road song.

But today, on this last day walking, when you fell into step with your aunt and moved across the stones together with the ease that comes with shared history, shared family, I noticed something illuminate. It happened in that moment when, after walking a bit together, she forged ahead of you. You saw that the one or ones walking ahead of you don't have to be dead. They might also be walking beside you even as they are ahead of you. You realized how much you love and admire your aunts who accompanied you here, how much you respect their courage, their writing. Even though your time together is often short and far between back in the "real world," I was so glad that you realized what it is about them that you cherish: that each time you're with them you feel connected and schizoid and crazy and loved.

Yes, Self, you took much from these 10 days about how to manage a group around differing and strong opinions, and about what you'd do differently on another walk with another group of writers at another time. But I hope that you also walk away clinging to an invitation to remain connected and determined to be responsible for your part. Its' up to you to strengthen the connection between yourself and your those few women brave enough to be your friends and especially between yourself and these two women how have known you your whole life. They walk ahead of you by just a few years. But they keep stopping, looking back at you, waving, encouraging you to keep going.

So, Self, I am proud of you for making this project happen. For finishing the walk, for trying (and failing a little and trying again) at letting go, for being flexible, and stubborn, and determined, and willing.

But, most of all, for actually seeing what -- and who -- was on this road by you and just a little head.

In gratitude,

Me

PS

Next stop the sacred Island if Iona!

A Coke in the middle of nowhere. Way angels, bless them.