On being who we are!

I just did something really odd for me.  I took of for almost four days without a clear agenda, and wandered into the homeland of my youth, Lake County, Oregon.  The draw was a "gathering" for lack of a better word, of some friends from High School.  Kind of a "Birthday Bash" for a bunch of us who were turning 60 this summer.

After a 7 plus hour drive through sagebrush and rocks, I arrived "home."  I love that drive BTW!  Some people might see the Oregon High Desert as bleak, but I find it mesmerizing and beautiful.  It is a unique and wonderful place on this earth!  Open, empty, and somehow calming.  First stop my sisters!  My sister Mavis Jean (not Mavis, that was mom).  Mavis Jean and I don't always see eye to eye.  Politics.  Theology.  We are not on the same spot in the spectrum.  But the cool thing is we can talk about it.  We can share perspectives.  Challenge each other a little.  And both come away having learning a little, grown and little, and still loving each other.  Any politicians reading this?

After a short wander along a lake shore in the morning, I headed off to "the middle of nowhere", Renner cabin.  Somewhere about 35 miles from Lakeview.  To get there is an adventure all its own.  And once there?  A wonderful 50 year old piece of western America.  Perched on a rock outcropping, overlooking the reservoir, nestled in on the edge of the trees, the cabin has lots of beds.   Electricity when the generator is on.  And VERY marginal cell service.  Funny to see the row of cell phones perched on the window ledge, one of the few "hot spots".  And people lined up, squatting down to text their families and friends.  Move your phone one inch and it was all over!  We are addicted aren't we :) ?

What was remarkable about this time was just the times sitting and talking.  Remembering the "old" days with "old friends" (I mean we have been friends a long long time, since kindergarten, its not that we are "old" or anything), talking about what is going on in our lives now.  Talking friendships, relationships, jobs, children.  Talking about other friends not present (no nothing bad) and remembering them too.

But what was nice as the sense of comfort.  There was no pretense.  We all were just who we are.  We know each other too well for anything else.  And therein lay the beauty of the time.  We spend so much of our lives trying to be who others want us to be.  Or trying to be who we think we ought to be.  And so little time just accepting, loving, and being ourselves.  But when we are able to do.  We can relax.  We can drop the pretenses, the defense mechanisms, and we can just, well "be".  And that is an amazing gift

Thank you Sherry for hosting.  And thanks to all who were there or wandered in and out, you know who you are, for being who you are, and for the gift of letting me just be.... me :)