What I Carried Home

Yesterday, I came home to Lille. The dogs were ecstatic. The laundry was waiting. The familiar rhythms of everyday life immediately began reasserting themselves.

And yet, something feels different.

For nearly two weeks, I wandered through Oxford, the Cotswold Way, Painswick, Bath. I walked through fields and forests, over hills, through churchyards and the glowing villages in which they sit.

Along the way, I found myself writing about beauty, challenges, attention, gates, benches, wildflowers, mud, butterflies, and unexpected conversations.

What I did not expect to find was myself. That sounds far more dramatic than I mean it to. I haven't become a different person. If anything, I feel more like the person I have always been.

For much of my life, like many of you, I moved through the world carrying responsibilities, solving problems, caring for others, and quietly shaping myself around what was needed. This journey gave me something I had rarely experienced before: My own company. To my surprise, I discovered that I quite enjoyed it. I enjoyed wandering without a destination. I enjoyed sitting on benches. I enjoyed noticing things. I enjoyed listening to music while walking through landscapes that felt as though they belonged in stories. I enjoyed allowing a day to become whatever it wanted to become. Most of all, I enjoyed discovering that I could trust myself.

Somewhere between Oxford and Painswick, another gift appeared. A new story. The Inkling began quietly, then grew louder with every mile. By the end of the walk, I knew not only the premise, but the entire shape of the book. It will be the first thing I have written that draws directly from my own childhood. It is still very much a work in progress, but I am excited by it in a way that feels both familiar and entirely new.

The walk ended. The train came home. Life resumed. And yet I find myself carrying something back with me. Something better than answers or certainty. Trust.

Trust in my own voice.

Trust in my own curiosity.

Trust that the next story will arrive when it is ready.

Trust that the path reveals itself one acorn at a time.

For now, I am grateful. Grateful for England, old roads, stories, kind strangers.

Grateful for the strange and wonderful life I seem to have found myself living.

And grateful to be home.

Notice things, my darlings.

~ Shannon ᭄᭡ ͏ ͏ ͏

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