My Heart As My Skin

This Summer I visited the home I go to in my dreams; where I learned to ride a bike, roller skate and make dandelion necklaces. Just before I moved away, it's also where I snuck in the basement and taught myself how to roll a cigarette with my Dad's Carleton filter cigarette machine.

Though I've been back to Toledo, Ohio and visited my old neighborhood a couple of times, I haven't lived there since I was thirteen. After 47 years, walking through the neighborhood, my good memories were as strong as the pull on my heart.

I have come to understand the rare and beautiful gift of a secure childhood and am deeply grateful to my parents. Because of their love, I started this life unafraid to live with my heart as my skin.

Mark Nepo writes about this tenderness in his essay Home from ~ Things That Join The Sea and the Sky, Field Notes on Living. You can read it here.