It’s been an impossible year: starting a new job and grad program simultaneously under the duress of the last government shutdown, concurrently settling into a new city where I don’t know anyone, losing my best friend Jim to a drunk driver in the run up to my finals. //

This week in Santa Fe was the first time I’ve had a second to breathe in almost two years. And it’s partly thanks to Jim, whose final gift to me was to posthumously tell me what I needed through this poem in the program at his memorial service. I certainly didn’t have the clarity at the time. //

It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life. But after going west, taking the side streets to silent places, I finally get to climb home again. I finally get to go north and sit alone beside my kin.

#SeeYallSoon #ThanksJim