Recharging station

When your brain gets fuzzy, and you don't know here from there, and you are knee deep in big questions, wondering if your life isn't going according to plan, or if it's going exactly to plan, or if there's no plan at all, here's what you do: book a flight, get out of town, go see your mom.

She'll meet you at the airport with a big hug, and then since it's her birthday, you'll take her to the new farm-to-table restaurant in downtown Boulder, and you'll order beet burgers and kale chips and hard ciders.  You'll giggle when she elbows you to say that she thinks that fresh-faced waiter named Howie has eyes for you.  Wander the stacks at the Boulder Bookstore, making notes of all the things you each like to put on upcoming birthday and Christmas lists.  Buy a fancy chocolate bar with caramel and pink sea salt and split it into little squares to share as you walk up and down the thoroughfare, in and out of the shops.

Pull up vegetables from the garden, and marvel at the miracles the season has produced.  Tall leafy kale, brussels sprouts growing like jingle bells on a thick stock, carrots twisted in funny ways.  Put a leaf of mesclun lettuce right in your mouth and chomp down to a bite so peppery and fresh and delicious, it tastes exactly like dirt and sunshine.  Clean out the herb gardens and be treated to the cheapest and purest aromatherapy session there is, inhaling mint, lemon balm, basil, sage, lavender.

Tune up your fiddle, and your momma will join you on guitar, your stepfather on mandolin, and play rounds of the few songs you know over and over, Bile Them Cabbage Down and Shortnin' Bread and You are My Sunshine.

Spend time in the kitchen, turning the garden abundance into simple, hearty and satisfying meals: carrot ginger soup, potato kale soup, pumpkin pie.  Trout pizza made from fish they caught up north earlier in the summer.  Homemade pickles and rye bread.

Let your mom beat you at Scrabble, every day.

Go see a romantic comedy at the movie theater, the one which you've already seen, and happily anticipate all the things that are going to make her laugh.

Sit in the hot tub each night and look up at the stars, glittering galaxy covering the sky.  You never see them in the city.  See your first falling star.

Greet the birds with your morning coffee, chickadees, juncos, bluejays, finches, and flickers, who drop in to feed and say hello.

Ask your mom what she felt at your age, if the restlessness and self-doubt ever go away.

Say your prayers, which you only ever do here.  You may not believe as fervently as your stepfather does, but his heart is so pure and his words so well chosen, that it will soften you.  It will teach you to remember how to say thank you, how to ask for help, how to have patience, how to let go.