Willow's Way

“Listen to the sound of the waves.

Breathe in 1, 2, 3, 4.

Breathe out 1, 2, 3, 4.

Repeat after me:

I am calm. I'm at peace.”

After years of forcing herself to commit to this one-minute morning meditation routine, it became a part of her survival kit for her life, though now she was no longer sitting in the overcrowded living room at 5 a.m., painfully aware of every sound in the house, scrunching her face at each little noise, thinking one—or both of the kids had woken.

The house that used to feel like it was never fully asleep, always humming with small movements—a mattress shifting, a door clicking—and then sudden bursts of laughter—was now quiet.

She was in her garden.

Oddly enough, this routine had given her the energy and focus to realize that growing things was not just a hobby. Her ability to grow tomatoes, garlic, basil, and onions gave her the ability to produce something far more meaningful and necessary to the world than her job as a special education teacher ever had.

This spot in the garden was carefully carved out for her by her husband years ago, once they relocated to Florida to live more freely. The state offered Willow a way to get paid to homeschool her two children, and her husband was able to work mostly from home selling real estate. The property they acquired was smaller than the space they left in Rhode Island, but it felt more open to the life they both wanted.

On one of his slow days, he decided to renovate a small space just outside the sliding glass door, across from Willow’s garden beds full of cherry tomatoes, basil, onions, and garlic. He planted lavender, created a waterfall out of rocks he found on the property, and found a storage bench to place a comfy pink cushion for morning meditation—a place where noise from inside the house could not be heard.

And even though the kids were grown and out of the house now, they still somehow managed to show up around dinner time most days of the week. Their laughter was made up of deep adult voices now—but still always unmistakably present while eating dinner.

Today would be one of those days Willow would get to hear the sounds of laughter at the dinner table again.

And though she was committed to her morning meditation routine, her thoughts wondered.

She was looking forward to tonight. She had bread to prepare; her sourdough starter sat idly on the kitchen table, warming and rising slowly. The table was a long rectangle with three simple lantern-style lights hanging above it, and it offered Willow the space she needed to prepare her sourdough breads, which she had turned into a small business even before leaving Rhode Island.

Though this particular loaf would be for her boys.

After tonight’s dinner, she and her husband would be away for the following two weeks on a trip to Portugal. So tonight was special. Because even though traveling was her favorite thing to do now that she had the freedom and money to do it, two weeks without seeing her boys would be painful. She wanted to hear their laughter once more before departure.

Willow folded up the pink cushion and placed it gently back into the storage bench, took in the scent of the lavender, and headed inside to the master bedroom, straight toward her walk-in closet. She decided to pack while she waited for the sourdough starter to rise. But as she grabbed her suitcase from the closet, she noticed something.

Tucked neatly away on the top shelf was a box. She knew what was in it. She had hung onto it for years longer than she should have, and all it did now was sit in a box—her college degree. She ripped open the box, and there it was, sure enough, glinting gold frame and all. Her life was not there anymore. What she created in the kitchen and in her garden with her kids had been far more representative of the life she had always wanted.

She slid each of the four levers holding the back of the frame in place slowly into open and took the paper degree awarded to her years ago out. What she did next was the most cathartic thing she had ever done.

She went back to her garden, walked past the cushion she had been motionless on in deep meditation, and straight to the small fire pit strewn with colorful pink and white rocks. She lit the flame; she then ripped the piece of paper into little pieces and threw them into the fire like confetti.

Her life didn’t need it's validation anymore.

Their laughter was enough.