Uproot
Last weekend we gathered with family, friends, and colleagues for a collective goodbye celebration. Thanks to our amazing friends the DiPaulos for hosting and to everyone supporting us in person and from afar. While we look forward to amazing adventures, the process of uprooting and saying goodbye is hard. But, to paraphrase Khalil Gibran, leaning into the hard stuff is how we carve out a deeper container for our joy. A couple months back I tried to capture this mix of emotions in a poem I shared last weekend. Hope you enjoy!
Uproot
by Eric Young, April 2023
To uproot,
To unearth,
To make the invisible, the buried, the taken for granted
Now seen.
The sturdy beams that
Kept me upright in Winter’s storm
And flourishing in Spring’s bounty,
Must be pulled up to be seen.
To uproot is to be grateful.
Family, friends, landscapes, traditions –
An underground tapestry
Over which I walked
Through sleepy scheduled days,
But now see so clearly.
As we uproot we rejoice,
We give thanks.