My daughter and I are going on our annual Mother-Daughter get away next week. I didn’t think it would happen this year...mostly due to a trial that I thought was going to consume me instead. But now the trial is pushed out for a bit and I am so grateful we can go.
It will be weird to return to the last place I went before the shut down. Return to a place that was the last place I felt like life was normal. Whatever that is. The last place that I was before the world shifted so significantly and all at once that all of our lives forever changed.
One year the earth has travelled around the sun. The daughter that I will travel with is different. She is not the girl I went with last year. She more fully a teen now, and much less little girl. I am no longer the me I was either. Wholly changed, hopefully for the better.
Our trip is always lovely. We stay in the lap of luxury but then spend most, if not all of our time hiking and being outside. It is so amazing. Sacred time in my sacred place with my best girl.
I am not sure what it is about this place and time that makes my life worth living but it does. I feel this pull towards the mountain, towards the beauty that surrounds. I love that I get to share it with her. That all of her life she will remember this time we spent here in this place with each other. The strength of the mountains, forever called back to the sea.
I love that we have always opted for grocery store food in the room rather than eating out. I love that our time away poses little risk because we spend our time together, in nature or in our beautiful hotel room feeling safe, warm and retreatish.
Big Sur Again, Again means something different each year. New lessons, new memories etched onto the old us. Her and me. We share and experience but we have different take aways. I find myself often wondering what hers will be. What impression does this time leave on her soul and heart?
I am not sure still what pulls me to this place. It isn’t just the beauty but the way I feel about the beauty while I am there. The way I feel about life, myself, about her and all of you. It is almost as if, for me, there is this spring of positivity stoked with gravity that exists in the ancient earth, trees and sky. And while I am there, I am a part of it, and it a part of me.
We hike to the top of a mountain every year. Up, up we go until we reach the pinnacle. Once we arrive, we sit. We nap. We yoga. We picnic. We read. We lounge. It is my most favorite day of the year when we pin ourselves to the ground and spend time just gazing at the sky. It beckons me, it calls me back, year after year after year.
I am not a returner, I am more of an explorer, almost always choosing to a new adventure in a new locale, but not with this place. This place has found a sanctuary within my soul and the soul of my daughter and though Big Sur belongs to no one really, it belongs to us for a few days every February. And we belong to each other, a mother/daughter celebration of love every Valentine’s Day. Learning new things about ourselves, each other and life. The time encapsulated with meaning, poignant, overflowing with knowledge about subjects familiar and intimate. Always, held transfixed between the strength of the mountains and made insecure by the sea. Aware of life as the mountain, always being eroded by the sea's tides endless laping at our shore.
We go to Big Sur Again, Again and I am made whole, again, again with her.
