It is May, the roses are all blooming, fading and making more buds, there is a pretty rose bush by the back window of the sun room that I planted after Stevie that is an odd shade of pink and lavender blended together, she would have loved it. I wonder if it was her kiss from where ever she is that made it explode with big fat flowers this year?

I took a week off, a week away, disappeared to Washington State to be with my boy, my thoughts, one of my best friends and old memories of a little house on an island where it rains all the time.

Last Thursday I decided for no particular reason to load up the car, the kid and my CD player and make the long drive down I5 past Lake Shasta, through Oregon and into Olympia where I spent four years with my girls. It was here we learned how to drive in the snow, how to pull ourselves out of the snow we slid into, how to fish, live in the rain, appreciate a sunny day, a hot bath, a good fire, make friends and be happy without the things we thought we needed before.

It was a difficult time financially, it was a lonely time, and a time of change for us but in the end the three of us (me, Aly, and Stevie) agree that it was a perfect time and we would not have changed a second of the time we spent there.

I took Noah to Steamboat Island where we lived where there is an oyster beach with a harbor, park and water for as far as the eye can see. I took Noah to our pic-nic tree, the beach the girls played at, the dock we crabbed off of and the house we once lived in. I wanted him to be a part of our history, it was hard having him there and Stevie being gone. She would have loved to show him her old fairy hang-outs, the little holes in logs she use to leave treats for them, the best flowers to make fairy dresses out of the crack in the wall down at the beach were she and Aly use to hide stuff and see if it would still be there after the tide went back out.

It was drizzly and cold, everything was so green, the water and sky so gray. I didn't cry until we left, it felt like a loose end, a place I needed to visit and remember, almost like she asked me to come. I did the right thing but it wasn't easy, remembering is so hard but it is also life-saving.

Stevie learned to ride her bike there from house to beach, and had the most terrible fall, a scar on her thigh marked the day forever. She went to fast down the hill and fell, the handle bar gouged her leg and she rode home bleeding the whole way. She was a trooper and proud to have made it home, down the hill, on her own.

Noah took it all in, I was glad he was with me, it made sense in a way I can not explain.

One of my very best friends welcomed me home, fed me, made sure I had a place to stay, shared her little boys with me and reminded me how kind and giving people are, how distance does not affect love.

It was a good trip. I needed the time and space, I needed to think, to cry, to drive until I couldn't stay awake. I needed hotels, swimming pools, gas stations, long roads, and the pink sky and sun setting behind MT. Shasta. It was a small adventure but just the right size for the two of us, three counting Stevie, she was with me, I know it.

I am tired.

I think I am entering another stage in this process or repeating one. My emotions are all over the place, change is coming and it isn't the change I want but the universe laughs at my plans once again.

I have to trust, have faith, surrender, it isn't easy.

I drove all those miles, now I am home, a new journey is begining, I wonder where it will take me.