the exception

I am reminded lately of how I felt before my last move, the one which brought me to these tan hills and high desert and river lover years. The knowing of change is more unsettling than the change itself. I can see it on the horizon, feel it shifting the ground beneath me, weighing itself into my decision on what I write and how well I can love. The knowing of my leaving, the impending departure of this stage of my life is sitting next to me in everything I do. 

There are sections of our lives, chapters, formative spans in which we become whomever it is we will be next. How could I ever have imagined what Idaho would do to me, mean for me, teach me? This entire adventure has been the exception. I am afraid I will leave and wonder if it were ever even real. I am here, and yet it already has begun to live in the past for me, stacking up the lasts of all I love. This kind of process will gain speed in the coming months, put on weight, and take more from my sails than I am willing to give. 

When I think of this life I will think of him going to work in the mornings as I lie in bed and drink hot coffee and read books between the tangled sheets. I will think of the frozen morning walks across campus as winds whip off the river banks and steal my breath. I will think of three whiskeys deep after a night of workshop and all of us convincing ourselves and each other we have what no one else has, that this is real, that we will be the exception to all the rules. 

I have to believe in something above myself lately. I have to know, as I did not know when leaving California, the greatness in the next part. I have left before, everything I love and know, and I was gifted by the world a new life which reached so far beyond my knowable happiness. I am so much more than I had been before all of this. I have feeling I will write love letters to Idaho for the rest of my life. I will be forever half-finished with my new story, beer in hand, posed on the side of a flush river. If I am lucky.