Saturday, September 15, 2012

Heavy Boots

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain
Strange energy afloat the last few days, leaving me unable to sleep, melancholic, restless.  Sails luffing.  Must be getting ready to come about.  Hard-a-lee!

Night arrives earlier and earlier each day as fall continues to pull the curtain on summer's light show, and with each pressing, lovely shade of darkness, it's all I can do to stop myself from climbing out of my own skin, head outside for some night-swimming, leave it all behind. But there's no lake here, just endless fields of corn and barley, and I walk the long roads looking for something to lighten these boots, fill these sails...

Or perhaps, it's the opposite: the need to climb back into my skin, trust in my body again, spend a little less time in my head, and more time surrendering to the sentience of living aflush, here, and now, nerve-endings awake and alive and electric with connection, a little passion, flow.  Please?  I don't think I can wait another day, another night.

I walk until I find some moonlight, and fill my hollows with the stillness and the shimmer of the stars above.  And yet, it is not ever enough.

Sleep seems intangible, something of an other world, something that no longer belongs to me.  As if my days cannot end, as if those missing pieces are indeed starting to talk to me, demanding that they be dealt with, polished and examined, loved, again.  Don't you forget about me.  

What will it take?  Why is it so hard to make a change?  To trust that it will be okay?  Why can't I break free, gather the winds from the skies above to power my own sails and passage through stormy seas?  This is, after all, no longer a safe harbor.  It's time to throw off the bowlines.  Have an adventure.
"I am not afraid of storms for I am learning to sail my ship."  ~ Louisa May Alcott
Sometimes I think I want the big storm to roll in, as if I will respond only to the catastrophic with a force equal in thunder and verve, to take action, my fight or flight instinct taking over, and harvest the glad tidings and joy that wash in with the tide.  But things remain puddle-stuck, unchanging, stat-quo, blue gloom, in this little spit-spot, and I don't intend to languish here for too much longer.  That there are still things and people here that get me through, that feed me, that I love, is not lost on me, and I am grateful: just this morning, walking through this wind-swept day, noticing that change is all around me, in the burnished tops of grass and corn stalks catching the light, the periodic dance of flocking birds, the sudden shifts in light and air and even the way the earth-smell has deepened with a richness of a slowly rotting, forever cycling world, I was reminded that change is what makes us, keeps us, alive, echoing the force, the beauty, the necessity of unbridled, seasonal tack that lies deep within us, and without.

And this, too: walking through a shiver of Saturday morning comings and goings, happy for a few serendipitous face-to-face connections and real conversations with friends, and starkly aware of the absence of others, I am, by turns, encouraged and disheartened, the ache deep and palpable, the swell and tilt of emotion rising to the surface to find release in this gently blustery day.  I hear you.  I know you're there.  There is a sharpness to the emptiness, an expansiveness to the loneliness that fills the space, and I don't trust it fully; my breath restarts again, and I am transported back to the slow burn of fear and dread, where my mind takes me to all the worst possible conclusions, and then back again, to the searing, soaring hope, above all else, for something better.

Something better.  I've imagined it, letting the possibility roll on my tongue, the kernel of promise split into an anticipation huge and luminous and a-shimmer with the dance of heartache.

Heavy boots.  Pulling in the sails.  Just going to luff it out for awhile, sit with the tears spilling salt on my cheeks, listen to the wind moving through the trees, whispers of my heart, my hollows.

We fill those hollows as best we can, with star dust and sunflowers and sweet, unexpected kindnesses that smooth out the rough edges, and it's all we can do, over and over again.   Fill it up again, restock the shelves, prepare for stormy seas, and then, when we're ready, when we can't stand it another day, trust that our strength and light will see us through, and go.  Go.

Katie Daisy original

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