30 miles out to sea… the little comma-shaped island is Nantucket.

Thinking too much about things. It’s a lifetime habit I have not yet entirely broken. Thinking has its place and I’m pretty good at it, truth be told. But as powerful as my brain happens to be, my heart is even better.

When I seat my Self there, I am at my best. I can easily know what my gray cells can never deliver.

I’m grateful for my brain, don’t get me wrong. And all the other parts of me, as I explained in one of my favorite Thanksgiving blogs. But what is the lesson I learn again and again— when I feel the need to know “why?” Ask my heart.

A few days ago, I started to write a blog in honor of Thanksgiving. I was having my long anticipated (and partially dreaded) solo Thanksgiving. Once I knew neither my children nor my sisters could be with me, I turned down several invitations in order to carry out the holiday my heart knew was right. Me and my cat, Boo Radley, a 12-pound turkey and a few fixings, and solitude.

I started the blog, and it was rolling out as a kind of “this is my choice/ here is what I’m doing/ this is good/ let me explain myself/ allow me to excuse myself for being the windswept hero on the clifftop with tangled hair and a fistful of crumpled poems.” I digress. Plus, there are no clifftops here, nor are there poems to be crumpled. The thinking blog I started to write… well, it was horrible.

Analysis and a careful breakdown of pros and cons is not going to answer the questions that sneak into my head late at night since arriving in my new life/job/home/island ten months ago. The questions run like this: Did I do the right thing? Why am I here? Is this going to work out? Have I made a terrible mistake? Will I be able to afford this? Are there any men on this island? Why is my life like this?

Wrong questions.

And I know that. The minute I feel my brain firing like that, I roll my eyes. They roll all the way back into that brain and frown at all those neurons freaking out and having a panic party. If eyeballs could enunciate, mine would probably say, “tsk, tsk, tsk.”

So when that happens, I make myself a nice cup of tea, light the candles, and remind myself that there is learning happening.

Because—this is my life and why am I here if not to learn? Yes, and grow. Yes, and trust the universe. Even when things seem objectively nuts, both out there in the world and in here in my confused state.

There is not much more to say, except that it seems pretty obvious to my cardiac muscle’s figurative counterpart that there is a reason for all of this.

I am an introvert living a literal and metaphorical insular life. I am on an island, but I think obsessively about how to get off of it to see my children, the world, tall buildings, friends. Doing so is not easy. Residents are very often trapped here by weather. And if you have a demanding job, well, you are mostly doing that, anyway. So what is in store for me here—to learn and become? Here where I am trapped by ocean and wind?

Wind-blown after a short walk in my neighborhood on Thanksgiving.

I’ve never liked wind. It has always made me extremely uneasy. So now I live in the birthplace of all wind. The place wind gets trained to be a Superwind. The elite wind mall, bragging a variety of winds never before imagined. Isn’t that interesting? Perhaps I am here to be blown away.

My life, though still clearly privileged by any objective standard, is extremely pared down. I have downsized to 500 square feet of coziness. I am blessed to have a place I can even remotely afford here in Nantucket, and so why the dark thoughts? I love where I live. Why do I feel insecure? I let myself worry about meaningless what-ifs until I remember I don’t want a big house. I don’t want a mortgage, a lawn to mow, an oil tank to replace. I can spend my Saturdays writing a blog, exploring the beach, or the Whaling Museum, or walking through town with a friend as I did today… instead of cleaning, calling plumbers, and repainting the bathroom. Much is possible.

A pared-down life on an isolated windy island is life as I know it, for now. It is exactly where I need to be, and my heart is learning why.