Another morning has arrived and my mind remains too exhausted and spiritually hung over to think/write except to offer this: there may be nothing in the world that cleanses my soul the way my bare feet on the earth, great deep gasps of fresh ocean air, and skinny dipping in a crystal clear lake do.

There may be nothing as rewarding as knowing the peace of sleeping under a sky that provides stars you can actually see, in air that caresses and heals your city lungs, or with an alarm clock of birds singing/clucking/crowing to the morning.

There may be nothing as liberating as a shower without walls and a spigot attached to a tree in the middle of the forest to help remind you that you are perfect in your imperfections, and that modesty and a war against age can easily become suffocating.

There may be nothing as rich and pure and beautiful as deep spontaneous belly laughter with friends that causes others to seek you and find the source of the ruckus…even if it was prompted by one of you falling and scraping a knee (only to be attacked by a tipsy friend with a first aid kit).

There may be no greater reminder of our habit to over-complicate things and the need to return to simplicity than drinking out of an old glass jar and watching a turtle as big as my reading chair eat a crab for lunch.

There may be nothing as comforting as finding “home” in friends, in laughter and stories and great adventures, or in s’mores by a campfire that result in your being donned “Minnesota Angels” by strangers (oh, yaaaa).

I’d never smelled the city in the way that I did when we hit her outskirts, she was dirty and thick and full of noise. I’d long since stopped being aware of soap, and it never smelled as perfumed as when I slathered myself with it in attempts to eliminate a funk I was almost unaware of (at least, until we got in the car and it swirled around us).

It’s hard not to want run screaming back into the embrace of that magical place in the forest, and to just fall off the grid for a while, but I can’t. Instead, I’ll let it live on as an escape from reality in bit by itsty bitsy bit over the days and weeks to come. Stories created and lessons learned over 3 short days with 3 wonderful women in the Golden Isles of Georgia nearing the end of the summer of 2007, that I only wish you all could have been there to share – because it was really, that delicious.