May has been quite a whirlwind. Two 50th birthdays in the house. A celebratory trip to Colorado, just the two of us. Brian’s daughter returning from her home in Europe with both grandbabies in tow. Interest from an agent. A dismissal from another. Maybe the biggest of the news is that I finally found the courage to take a leap I have been wanting to take for some time.

Just after my 50th birthday on the 9th, yet before Brian’s 50th on the 19th, we took a trip to Colorado to see the rising behemoth Billy Strings play at Red Rocks. There is so much to say about those short five days, but I can sum it up in 50 words (or less).

Like life, it absolutely did not go as planned, but we rallied and stuck together through the hardship, disappointment, celebration and relief; connection, nature, art and expanding beliefs; torrential rain, live music, new friends made, ashes spread, tears shed, memories made—all amidst the constant thought, “Josiah is missing THIS.”

Mid month, I received a final email from a literary agent who for a moment showed promise. It included just one sentence, “Consider it an agency wide pass.” No “Good Luck. Best wishes. Thanks for your submission.” It came while sitting in line at a drive-through coffee shop that had a sign plastered to its exterior wall touting, “Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.” It made me angry when I saw it.

What is this “nothing” they speak of? I couldn’t help but wonder what life was like for the person who wrote it. I have found statements like those to be well intentioned but empty. They imply that getting knocked sideways or losing our ground is some sort of internal failing. Plastering platitudes over our aches and pains and breaking hearts may provide rigidity, but they won’t save us from fate’s unfortunate attacks. If you ask me, weathering life’s storms has nothing do with strength and everything to do with being supple.

I grabbed my coconut milk latte and headed straight to the cemetery clutching a bouquet of yellow tulips to be placed on Brian’s mother’s grave. It was the only place I could think to go on the one year anniversary of my mother’s death. My mom was the one who always told me, No dream is too big to dream, and although she is gone, I can still hear her telling me just that.

A few graves down knelt a woman who never looked up. She was armed with a trowel, furiously ripping clods of grass and dirt from around a headstone, thrusting them over her shoulder, faced pained as she repeated the process over and over again. I stood there staring at her, deeply relating, knowing that what she was wrestling with was much bigger than weeds. I placed the bright yellow tulips in the sunken vase at the base of Wendie’s headstone while thanking both of our mothers for all they had done and then promptly left.

While there, an email was being written which popped into my inbox just after I left. It was from an agent I queried eight weeks prior requesting a meeting with me the following week which brought balance to the one I had received. “Thanks, Mom!” I bellowed hoping she could hear me.

When I finally met with the agent, she suggested writing a book proposal. “As an example,” she said, “Let’s say you’re writing a book about tulips…” I heard it as a nod from my mother that she is indeed still with me.

Then late last week, while being homebound and mostly bedridden with what turned out to be bacterial bronchitis, I both wrote and sent in a letter of resignation from my job. The decision was made after months of grappling with a job that did not align with the path that I’m on, which is to get Remember the Birds written, one keystroke, word, paragraph, page and baby step at a time. 

Why is it that following our hearts always proves to be so scary? The first step feels like it is headed straight into an unwanted abyss but once taken, releases the weight of what’s been holding us back.

It’s so easy when we are struggling to look outside of ourselves to all of the stressors we are facing and say, “It’s this. It’s that. If only…”

I finally came to the realization, once again, that it isn’t anything outside of me holding me back. It’s inside.

Steven Pressfield writes in his book The War of Art, “The more important a call or action to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”

My internal guidance system which leads me towards the life that is intended for me kept telling me that I had lost course. It’s no different than the maps program on my phone–it keeps talking to me, trying to redirect me and get me back on track. 

The call that I have to see this project through is so strong, so loud, that whenever I am out there—in the world somewhere—it calls me back here, back to this seat and back to the page. All I really have to do is listen.

After that knot rose up from my stomach into my throat, threatening to turn into words that would surely pass over my lips, I reached out to an old, yet new to me again, friend who both appears and disappears in Remember the Birds. I knew she would tell me what I needed to hear.

She said to me, “Liz, nothing is guaranteed. We don’t know how much time any of us have here. What are you going to do with your one precious life?” 

“Oh yes, I want to write,” I responded. “And I remember you telling me a long time ago, ‘God’s will is what brings you inner peace.’”

“Yes,” she said, “and God’s will is also what brings you joy.”

We didn’t come here to perpetually slog. There will be times in our lives when tragedy strikes, when we will be stuck trying to swallow a huge piece of humble pie or in a position where we feel we have few choices. We’ll get washed away in tidal waves of frustration and grief, but we aren’t meant to stay there. When the courage strikes and the energy wells up inside of our bodies, we have to seize it–make the phone call, send the email or call the friend who is going to encourage us to push through the fear and make moves we might not otherwise. 

Stay supple my friends and keep moving forward, one baby step at a time.

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To Mary Jo:

A huge shout out of gratitude to my friend, Mary Jo, whom I have grown to know through social media over the past three or so years and who also knows the pain of losing a child. Mary Jo also traveled to Colorado to see Billy Strings with some of her son Joe’s ashes in tow. She suggested we spread some before the show.

Joe Iles and Josiah “Jo” Hilderbrand are together forever at Red Rocks and that great big venue in the sky.