The rustle of the river over the hill and behind the trees is constant, time’s current, and fills the emptying vessel of the day with sound. I am walking barefoot up the road from friend Bruce’s hilltown home toward the community of dancers, whose annual retreat here is part exploration, part homecoming: everyone arrives ready to listen, ready to speak, the conversations made of movement and trajectory, and geometry and the (morphing) architectures of bone and sinew, intention and opportunity, lift and release.

I was invited (inveigled) to spend one of my last days in the States in the woody west of Massachusetts, where many of my friends from Boston had, as annual habit or pilgrimage, temporarily landed. Seven or eight days of sun, camping, good food, and movement bundled into a retreat center 30 or more years old. I thought, and I said, – Ah, Paul, it’s so crazy right now…

But somehow intention met invitation, everything that needed to go in a suitcase went in a suitcase, everything needing to be jettisoned was sold or given, and a car rented for a couple of days: suddenly that long drive looked shorter, the destination sweeter, a bed made available, and there I was on the threshold of yet another goodbye.

Every good-bye like every persona has its unique character, and this generous circle of humans – ranging in age from months to years to decades old – was probably the best last visit that could have been made. The heart aches when the mind says farewell; but the heart is strangely, beautifully warmed when the farewell is physical: somehow the cells themselves are accompanied in their transit, the hug is present and travels with you, the smile is about care and affection, not despair and defeat.

I care, we care, there is care for you. Go well, come back soon, we’ll see each other again.

Those who live only in their minds will be harmed when they fall to earth. Those who live in the moment in their bodies will fall to earth and rest.

Good-bye friends! I am sure some of you will fly over to Europe and share a bit of our adopted (adoptive?) Mediterranean sun; and for those whose bones and muscle aren’t spirited by that modern magic to our shores, I assure you, as I arrive, you arrive.

“Go well, come back soon, we’ll see each other again.”

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