Mo Chuisle

May his pursuit of happiness never end

   This Sky   

   This

   sky

   where we live

   is no place to lose your wings

   So love, love

   Love.

             --Hafiz

It has been a really long week.

Without going into too many personal details, I'll just say that it began with a wedding of some dear friends, and ended with my uncle's unexpected funeral. And from the highest joy to the deepest sorrow, I have been surrounded, literally swarmed, engulfed, and enveloped by the warm, steady, murmuring, kinetic, complicated embrace that is family--both the given and the chosen. With never more than an hour to myself, I have spent the week encamped in various hotel rooms and yards, in various states, laughing, drinking, dancing, sharing, holding, grieving, weeping, remembering, and loving with these beautiful people.

This morning, alone again after so many goodbyes, through the buzz and bustle of more airports, I kept thinking I heard the voices of my family in the crowd. At first this was unnerving, in my under-caffeinated haze of utter exhaustion, but eventually those lingering echoes became a comfort--as if I were a child again, falling asleep to the sound of laughter in another room, carried into another place by the security of those murmurs and the certainty of unconditional love.

All this is to say, in your heart or in your arms, hold them close, your kin and kindred. 

Life is short, but it can be so, so good.