wedding, roots, and milagro.

so this is the ending to one of the best weekends i have had in a long time.  its sunday, so i can't stop humming a familiar grateful dead song, and its the day after my sister, allie's wedding, so i can't stop replaying the evening over and over in my mind.  girl can throw a party, there is no doubt about it.  in few words, the wedding was fabulous.  allow me to lay out the scene.  two windy dirt roads led us to the little Sleepy Hollow Inn in Huntington, Vermont on January 27th;  a super small, family owned inn surrounded by cross country skiing/mountain biking trails (which may open up the possibility of a summer time visit for me!), and accompanied by a beautiful round barn with huge windows that frame the view of Camel's Hump, the mountain that we all scurried up as little ones, when our feet were growing so fast that we got a new pair of hiking boots every year.  there was an intermittent dusting of snow (which sounds really romantic, and maybe it was more like random patches of ice), and intermittent snow flurries (not to mention the night of rain) to boot. the bridal party- which included bride, groom, moms, dads, groomsmen, bridesmaids, dates, wives, girlfriends, and more stuffed ourselves into the little inn, all the folk who went stag slept three to a room and the couples were assigned little cozy love nests.  the weekend started off with a night of karaoke, and new fun fact about megan-i apparently really love karaoke.  After witnessing a completely out of tune "sweet caroline" and belting out janis joplin's "piece of my heart" and consuming what seemed to be about 25 glasses (they were very small) of wine, we concluded the evening gathered around an ipod and speakers talking about modern timeless music, and what its like to love to sing and not care what people think.  
the next day was THE day.  the day allie has been waiting for, and the day her older sister has been patiently awaiting amid curiosity, excitement and quarter-life-crisis moments.  for lack of a better adjective, and because my head is still swimming in tequila, the day was beautiful; the picturesque round barn was beautiful, the bride was beautiful, the ceremony was beautiful, and all the attendees were beautiful too.   and not only was the wedding chock-full of dancing, laughs, and a very short, lacking in passion, and mildly abusive love affair with milagro tequila, it was also a really beautiful reminder.  a beautiful reminder of where i come from.  i came from that day.  i come from the people who showed up and have always been, and will continue to be witnesses of the lives of the campbell girls. i come from witty sarcastic dry and hilarious comments, from sweet libations in the middle of winter time, and from the lack of shame in what its like to belt it out and shake it on the dance floor.  i come from countless winters in vermont, fireplaces and borrowing my mother's boots to go outside.  i come from my three sisters.  what a blessing.  i come from an extended family that is mostly not related by blood, but by love and unquestionable bonds, and from hair tugs and finger traps from those who are related to me by blood.  i feel most comfortable marching around in the cold in a flannel and ripped jeans, and i enjoy sleeping until at least 8 when its below 40 degrees outside.  woodstoves are one of my favorite things in the world, and so are dads.
so i guess everything that i am getting to here, is a big fat thank you to allie and josh.  thank you for creating and believing in magic.  thank you for taking me back to my roots (somewhere along the way, i lost touch with them).  thank you for introducing me to beautiful new family, and beautiful new friends, and creating a space where almost everyone we know and love could get together again and realize that we don't want to do this just once every 5 years because its too important.  life is too short.  most of all, thanks for believing in love, and having faith enough to take the risk.  it gives me hope and brings me joy.  you are both beautiful.  and thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a witness and a part of it all.
many many blessings to the bride and groom and all of the attendees! love you.
              

first run in about three weeks

hello friend. i seem to have forgotten about you.  i got swept up in what its like to be in new hampshire at the end of january.  long shadows, the sun not peeking its way into my east-facing window until 8am, family time, laughs, tensions, differences, the cold that has always bit me right on the end of my nose and the points of my cheek bones.  but today-as if i had my phone on me for the first time in weeks- you called me, and i responded.  bottled up, used up emotion, energy, muscle memory, and someone else's i-pod helped as well. i hit the ground running.  thanks for calling.  you have seen me at my worst- tears, fears, anxieties sitting on my chest like bullet proof vests, and my best-smiles stretching extra close to my eyes, skipping-jumping-bursting-exuberance.  i have forgotten about you, i have abused you, i have been really ungrateful for all the opportunities you have provided for me, and yet, you're still here. waiting for me. always ready to let me at it.  

it turns out that running in 30 degree weather has its own perks.  its energizing in a different way than the hot sun beating on me, or the moist air settling on my skin-the wet suit of sweat i wore in hawaii.  here, my skin is all dry afterwards, and my lungs hurt a little bit, my muscles and joints feel a bit confused, AND the amount of ALIVE i feel is unlike anything else.  

so thanks again.  thanks for always being there.  thanks for clearing my head and my heart.  thanks for allowing me to notice that there is a sidewalk on the road that i have driven down for the years in a fitful tearful  teenage fury unable to get to the ocean fast enough. thanks for the reminder.

today i ran to the ocean on the other side of the world.  the other ocean.  the cold cold atlantic, that i once ran into and submerged myself in late october, and let. go.  

    

     

thank you

i am at the point of no return when it comes to starting where i left off the last time i signed on to this thing.  for starters, it is 5 o'clock right now and pitch black outside.  that's right, i have left the most remote archipelago in the world and am now sitting in a creaky study in the northeast corner of our country, the seacoast of new hampshire.  its amazing how much lower the light sits in the sky on this end of things... in hawaii we are only about 1500 miles away from the equator, here, the miles seem immeasurable.  i have gone from bikini bottoms and airy shirts to tearing through my 13 year old sisters closet in search of a warm hat, and gallavanting down the streets of cambridge for a pair of closed toed shoes that doesn't cost me a fortune (and doesn't look like the geeky purple pair of tennis shoes i was running in just a week ago in only a sports bra).
yes, it all seems like a distant dream right now.  hawaii.  does it really exist?!  am i really so lucky to have just spent the last three months of my life there?! it feels surreal, undeserved, a mere story i made up in my fruitful imagination.  it was truly a place of healing for me.  so i wanted to write hawaii, the goddess pele, the ocean, the raw black jagged truth that is the energy vortex of the place i just became so intimate with, a thank you note... (these tend to be my favorite ones to write!) so here it goes!
i apologize if i have left anything out. and know, it wasn't all peaches and cream... ha!

dear dear dear hawaii,
where to begin? i feel infinitely grateful to have spent the last three months with you.  to start off i would like to thank you for challenging me.  for cutting up my feet, making me question what it really means to be grounded.  for throwing all mother nature's elements at me all at once; for overwhelming me with emotion; for helping me feel what it really means to be lonely; for sucking me into the womb of darkness, my eternal introspection where my self-critic feels oh-so-comfy and the black dog is fed;
thank you for providing me with fertile yet rocky unforgiving ground for growth.  for retribution from myself and the smoky tortures of my mind; thank you for aiding me in the discovery of distraction and the opening, healthy, hearty, laugh-at-myself-moments.  thank you for providing me with perspective.. for drawing me so far away from all my different families, that appreciation no longer has the same ring to it as it did before, endless gratitude and new eyes are more like it. thank you for introducing me to new family.
new eyes.  thank you for giving me new eyes.  for allowing me to re-discover the magic of snow falling, fire places, and scarves, and what it means to spend the holidays with my sisters; i dont know if i will ever spend another christmas so close to alone. 
thank you for allowing me to swim everyday.  to exist in prayer and meditation.  to be quiet and contemplative without over analyzing.  to be nice to myself.  to begin to learn to know what it means to embrace my big hips and on-the-thicker-side-thighs.  thank you for teaching me the art of relaxation.  of introducing the possibility that maybe wherever i am, really is where i am supposed to be.  patience.  truth.  the mending of a broken heart. 
i promise to keep learning the hawaiian moon calendar.  i promise to keep in touch with family there.  i promise to take what i have learned with me.  i promise to work on coming from a place of gratitude and forgiveness, and to continue practicing what it means to live with aloha. 
please know that i walk forward balancing on the fringe of knowing my own strength and beauty, and i will humbly accept any more challenges you can throw my way.

much love in prayer and gratitude.
aloha,
mc