Napa Valley Birthday Celebration

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes; for those who love with heart and soul there is no separation.” – Rumi

By far the hardest part about moving is leaving our friends. Leslye left us to travel and rock climb around the world (seriously, she is the coolest). But the weekend before she left we all met in Napa to celebrate the twins birthday!

Oh happy day!

This was back in early March after we had gotten a ton of rain. The trees and flowers were just sprouting and spring felt like a spirit present in the air. And the grass was so, so green. Green tangled with green everywhere.

After setting up our campsites we headed to a winery. The vineyard didn’t have any seating available so we climbed in the back of Alexis’s pick-up truck and basked in the sun. We surprised the twins with a chocolate tort cake (but forgot silverware–oops). And so with wine glasses in one hand and chocolate cake in the other we cheered to the twins! The longer I live, the more important rituals become and I am so grateful to have been able to celebrate the birth of two of my favorite people!

Also! I learned a new word from Lori — saudade — the presence of absence.

“Of Portuguese origin, in a whole bunch of clumsy English words, saudade means “the love that remains” after someone is gone. It’s the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, wellbeing, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It describes a deep nostalgic longing. But it goes deeper – implicit in the emotion is the fact it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing will never return. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (your children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (places, things you used to do in childhood) that should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. It can also describe a love for something that you know will never exist.” – Sarah Wilson

“The Portuguese call it saudade: a longing for something so indefinite as to be indefinable. Love affairs, miseries of life, the way things were, people already dead, those who left and the ocean that tossed them on the shores of a different land – all things born of the soul that can only be felt.” – Anthony de Sa