Rounder where it counts.

"You look.." she looked at me deeply and then searched for the perfect word, "...rounder".

I had just returned home to Austin last summer after a few weeks away.  My friend welcomed me with a tall iced tea and plenty of space to have the conversation wander.

"Yep.  You look rounder."

Her eyes crinkled up in a laughing, happy smile.  This soul friend who knows me so well had not the slightest worry I would take this all the wrong way, despite the obvious five pounds I'd happily acquired in a short fortnight.  I understood what she was communicating in that choice of a word.  She knew that is exactly how I hoped to return to Austin, to life in the real lane.

And here I am again.  For over twenty years we have been coming to this familiar and beloved place.  A solitary, sanguine beach tucked away on the Atlantic ocean has become the salty landscape woven into layers of Hall family memories; David and I newly in love, newly married, newly parents, and now this year, newly able to sit and read while the children surf and swim.

I usually arrive flat, squeezed, brittle, breathless.  For the first few days I have trouble reading, writing, or sitting still.  I pace a bit.  But as the tides ebb and the afternoon storms roll in day after day, we all melt, exhale, expand.

I need this annual pilgrimage because I leave it better than when I stumble in.  Like the praying mantis who shares the inside of my new screened porch, I shed my wafer-thin, too-tight, crackly skin of the previous year and emerge, hopefully, greener.

I realize more each year that it's not really the place, but rather a place that I seek expectantly.


















How do I nurture a roundness to my soul?  How do I keep my smile ready, my edges soft, my gaze gracious and patience deep?  How can I keep open spaces for reading, for prayer and thought, for people and interruptions?

I don't know, exactly, but I like these questions much better than the ones I was asking before I arrived.