Sharing // Mem Lamed Hay
The Inner Sanctuary is an exploration of the 72 Kabbalistic Names of G-d. This is Post 23/72.
If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere. - Vincent Van Gogh
It was the last morning of our trip, which happened to be Father’s Day, so we (he) managed to book us an earlier flight home to get back to the kids a few precious hours sooner. I took my time packing up as he took one final run on a trail close to the mountainside hotel.
I asked the front clerk for an extra packet of coffee to brew one more cup and took the mug with me down to the patio level. Also in tow was my journal, one of the 4x6 end table Marriott cards for jotting notes in lieu of a memo pad, a pencil, and pen. I wore his brown wool Pendleton, appropriately named “The Lodge” according to the tag, over my cotton dress with built-in shorts, feet in my Birkenstocks and surprisingly not too sore from my previous day in the mountains. I felt unapologetically myself. I felt at home. I felt the afterglow of a truly hard, sustained physical effort.
I prayed before my run that the adventure would somehow heal me. That I would descend down the mountain a new me.
Rather than sketch the mountains like I had intended, I pulled my phone out of the Pendleton shirt pocket, opening a recent text from “Coach”. It took him a few days to respond when I asked for his mailing address.
I drew a line down the center and in the middle of the right column I wrote out my dad’s address, turning the flimsy piece of cardstock into a postcard.
On the left, just a few sentences. Wishing him a Happy Father’s Day, letting him know my whereabouts and that I just did a kinda objectively cool athletic feat, and informed him his grandson is a Giants fan and playing T-Ball this summer. A tear streamed out the corner of my eye and down my cheek as I wrote these simple words.
I thought of future him receiving the postcard and smiling his goofy smile, touched by the gesture. Mem Lamed Hay.
I sketched and used my watercolor palette to paint the view from the window back in our room before checking out on the reverse of the card. But before I went back to my room, I noticed a breathtaking flowering bush of what I assumed were peonies inconspicuously tucked away behind a side railing.
I walked over to the gorgeous blooms, smelled their sweet floral but not overpowering scent. They were breathtaking, and I admired how lovely their pale pink petals looked against the bright yellow mug. It’s a color I would never choose for a mug, but I admired the beautifully imperfect beauty of that moment. This tucked away beauty, hiding in plain sight.
I had written this whole other thing about my run in the mountains, in hopes of sharing the beauty of that experience. But this is the story that wanted to be written. That wanted to be shared. That feels a bit more vulnerable to share. That hopefully inspired a little spark of something in you, the reader.
I think my pre-run prayer was answered. Mem Lamed Hay.