A neighbor dropped off the cobbler and the soup.

I greeted him from behind the closed screen door.

“Welcome home,” he said; he turned away.

Small acts of kindness set down like homemade vegetable soup on your doorstep.

We live to lighten each other’s load, of course, we do.

Yet when someone lightens your load, it comes as a surprise.

The load unexpectedly lighter.

The heavy weight drops. You were unaware of how much you carried.

Just because of the soup.

Just because you’re anxious,

Doesn’t mean you’re not right to be. You still get to laugh.

A lot.

Laugh more.

While you dance and the floor collapses and the space expands.

And yes, in meditation, the rising and falling of breath, the expanding and collapsing.

The rising and falling of sunshine and moonshine, dance partners,

Taking turns.

Like this planet turning around the sun.

Life and home and welcome and distance.

Gone from the city for a week, in ways we are more connected.

We are more reflective.

Who knew walking the dog would save me?

I never had a dog. I’m liable to make mistakes.

Who wants to be perfect anyway?

Yesterday, I gave up. I said, “Forget the family dinners. It’s too much work for me. Too much bickering from the three of you.”

And then the kids cooked dinner and I set the table.

I was on an island, and the kids came on a boat to rescue me.

And we laughed. And we bickered more. And cleaned up together. Mostly.

This is not Gilligan’s Island. Or a sequestered monastery in Switzerland.

But life is richer and more full of gems.

Gems of compassion and heartbreak.

The world is both simpler and more complicated than we ever knew.

I needed the homemade soup, the pizza, the rescue from my neighbors, children, friends.

I needed the “Welcome home.”