I'd rather be a sparrow than a snail

It took me years to be the woman my mother raised. It took me 4 years 7 months and 3 days do it, without her. After I lost myself in the wilderness of my grief I found my own way out of the woods.
I did not know where I was going until I got there, on the last day of my hike. Thank you, I thought over and over again, for everything the trail had taught me and everything I couldn’t yet know. How in 4 years I'd cross this very bridge and marry a man in a spot almost visible from where I was standing. How in 9 years that man and I would have a son named Carter. And a year later my daughter named after my mother, Bobby.

I know only that I didn't need to reach with my bare hands any more. That seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. It was everything.

My life — like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred. So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me. How wild it was, to let it be.