Love and Letting Go

It's hot in Portland, sun like it's meaning to shine. My wedding rings rest in my change purse, and I'm taking off the one on the other hand, the ring with my teacher's name inscribed in Sanskrit. I've worn that one for twenty years. It's been a golden force for my mind, something to hold me as I held onto it.

But now I just want to let go.

Listening to a song about growing up in the sixties and seventies, about having faith in so many things. So many possibilities. And now, how being a child of that history, it's all just a river.

Sing me an old song and remind me what it means...

Earlier today River and I see a truck full of trees on the highway. She says, "Mama, what are the trees doing in that truck?" I pause. "Well, trees are made of wood and people will cut that wood with a saw and use it to build houses and buildings."

"Do the trees want that?" She's puzzled.

"I'm not sure, Riv. I don't think so, but maybe they don't mind helping out."

Silence in the back seat. "Then I won't be able to hug those trees..... I wuv them."

With her visionary heart, for the next half mile, we follow behind the truck. "Let's send those trees some love, babe, for their journey."

"Yeah, mama, let's do that for them."