“Tan…but not too tan…”

“Black or Tan sweetheart?”

The waitress beckoned my response.

“Tan, I offered back gently, “but not too tan.”

I was eager to prepare my coffee myself, always a bit resistant to others serving me, but she’d insisted.

It was early still, bout 7 am. Sunrise light was soothing in a calming, hopeful kinda way.

Other guests hadn’t yet arrived to this motel cafe.

Yet, I was eager to get on the road, nah, scratch that.

I was eager to keep driving.

Keep driving meant keep my mind from wandering into that land of ‘how am I really going to do this?”

I knew this much.

I knew I was heading back.

This was my 4th u-turn in the span of the 1500 miles up and down the East coast between Boston and Miami. Miami and the Florida Keys were home to me, to the core. Boston? Held a story I was determined to know to the core.

I’d driven back and forth, pondering if my goal was worth it. No one else seemed to share this goal. Who was I to want it? Stupid, impractical, no one does this with their life. Yep. All that muck was right up there destroying any ounce of resolve to follow through. I mean how dare I actually want something unique.

But, hell I knew it was worth it.

Was I the one to do it?

What if I couldn’t do it alone.

What if I’m not allowed?

What if I don’t finish?

What if it never amounts to something?

Is wanting this enough?

But it was worth it. And more?

I knew I’d figure out how.

Because I knew I wasn’t alone. Every moment of my being knew a lifelong conviction I’d lived.

I am, we are, always being nudged by that intelligence that steers all things. I knew I’d have that, if only that, it was everything.

The challenge was this bugger: “How the heck was little nobody nothing me gonna achieve this?”

That intimating chorus sang its way straight to my deepest vulnerabilities and I’d been paralyzed in indecision.

So, rather than stay stuck and feel anxious, I’d just a few weeks prior insisted I couldn’t do it.

I’d left and run away from my dream, again.

But a few weeks of praying up and down the east coast, seeing a ton of familiars I’d seen in road trips north with my grandparents as a child, and doing a ton of deep praying, I’d resolved this:  Iknew i couldn’t escape the pull.

Now nowhere to live (that’s a whole nother story but suffice it to say I didn’t have a place to land back up north) and my entire belongings in the back of my car, I was more intimidated about the process of getting settled and re-established.

After u turning in Georgia and heading north for the 4th time, I’d pulled over in New Jersey to rest.

And this one morning I was finally feeling a sense of calm and hope again.

And just as the waitress proceeded to pour I heard

“So where ya headed, ‘Tan but not too tan’ ?” The call’s tone was a calm man’s voice.

I turned around to see a seasoned silver haired gentle kind aged with wisdom face grinning back at me.

“Good morning to you.” I responded. “That’s quite the question.”

He looked at me inquisitively and asked again “where ya heading?”

I respond honestly: “I’m heading….to conquer my fears.”

He nods. Sips his coffee.

“Huh. Don’t I know it. Understand. Say no more” he says…as if in his own way saying ‘been there done that.’

He smiled.

While doing,  I walk over to where the waitress has motioned for me to come get my coffee and come nearer to where he’s seating.

I can’t help but notice his wrist.

He’s wearing 10 braided rope bracelets.

In an instant I feel a warm familiar as the bracelet remind me of camp and in a very familiar way give me that gentle reminder that we’re never too far from what we know.

I sit down at his table. It just felt necessary.

I ask him “Do you make these?”

He says “what the bracelets? Nah, my grandkids do. Each one made me one. Some gave me a few extra.”

Mimicking them he said “C’mon grandpa you gotta wear these.”

He raised his eyebrows and sighed.

“Can’t say no to a grankid.”

I’m moved to tears that early in the morning.

For not more than maybe 3 yrs prior I’d said farewell to my grandpa.

Never made him a bracelet but spent so many weekends of my most recent years taking him out on sojourns to entertain him, I knew well the closeness of a grand daughter and her grandpa.

I told him, my morning coffee friend, so.

“They surely love you.”

He grinned.

“Well, don’t know bout that, but I agree to wear their concoctions.”

And with that he takes one off his wrist.

“Say, ‘Tan but not too tan’ (his nickname for me), why don’t you have one of these. I’ve got plenty.

And as you wear it, you can remember this, what my 6 yr old grandson told me as he gave it to me.

He said, ” ‘Grandpa, it’s a braided bracelet. Know what that means? We’re interwoven.’ ”

I’m speechless.

I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

“It’s true,” the grandpa said.

“We’re all connected in one way.

and I like to think whatever we need to do, somebody else has already done.

So this fear you are off to conquer, you’ll do it.

You’re not the first and you surely wont be the last.”

With that, he gave me the braided bracelet.

And said “I must be heading ‘Tan but not too tan’. Off to see those very grandkids. And I’ll prolly be wearing a few more bracelets tonight! Ha.

Go conquer that fear and take care of yourself.” He waived as he walked off.

And as I watched him head, I held the braided bracelet round my wrist.

I knew he was right.

We are interconnected.

I would conquer this fear.

I wasn’t the first…

and I surely wouldn’t be the last.

and in that moment, I felt that hug of divine love reminding me yet again:

we are never, ever alone.

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