Fear resides on both sides, in the direct sun and in the borderless shadows; the light, however, competes with mine, so my soul still remains largely unexposed.
I unzip my skin behind the bushes and dip into the sea of all that I am and all that I have yet to be,
a flame underwater, inextinguishable, no longer chained to the illusion of drowning; I dive deeper in belief of my self and arise, wet and glowing.
In my new skin, a more comfortable fit, I swirl together the sun and shadows as I dance, and the flickering upon my upturned face reveals another transformation taking place within.
That unexpected drop we don’t see coming. It’s one thing when you are watching your footing, placing your soles carefully around the eggshells, having been conditioned, trained, skilled, at moving around in this on-guard, defensive way. It’s another when you’ve just started to have confidence in the spring in your step upon trusted ground. I was outdoors, in my favorite place, when it happened this last time.
A trap pre-set by a predator disguised as a friend. Another very unexpected fall. No problem. I’m used to it. I know what to do. It’s all very logical. Except when I go to grab onto the root to begin the climb, it opens another hole. I unexpectedly drop again. I reach, I lift myself, I lift myself, I reach for the wrong root again and another hole opens… I don’t understand these. They come from deep within my own self. These were not set by him. There is no logic; I’ve tried every pattern. Eventually, I make it out.
And then another pit sends me plummeting.
I’m thinking about these pitfalls today, sitting upon a rock in a favorite dress on a beautiful day, revisiting the scene, the trap pre-set especially for me. I find myself thinking the all-too-familiar question for each of us, so universal, so personal: why me?
I honestly do feel I should have been spared by my higher power. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve done my time. With Trauma. But what sense of entitlement and special treatment is that? Not to mention the whole free-will clause which others can use to interfere with my own hard work and desires.
So I do now reflect on the possible reasons. Does God have yet another lesson for me to learn, yet another trial to overcome? How strong does He want me to be?! And why?… When I think of this, I do not feel like a victim; there is very little woe is me. I actually get a bit excited that He is preparing me for big things. Like I am a chosen one. And if ever I were to be in training or to serve, I would definitely want it to be for Him! I feel empowered. I feel an ego I never thought I had. I always thought I was selfless to a fault.
I did it. I think. Again. I’ve lost, yet won. Are you proud of me, God?
I think, too, about how much I have control of and how much I don’t. I know how we react is everything, our miseries often self-induced, self-perpetuated, the way we keep ourselves trapped and prisoners; we look down sometimes and see the cuffs and chains are unlocked, and we scramble to re-secure them. Why?
Is it all fear?
If so, are we really trusting God is with us, sees what is ahead? We cannot get there if we keep re-locking ourselves when He keeps setting us free.
My past is my past. I have freed myself from it. I must shake the dungeon dust fully off. Perhaps that is the purpose of these new wings.
I feel the breeze of your and His love…
Thank you for always believing in me.
I suppose with wings, these pitfalls can no longer sink me; I’ll keep my eyes forward in these skies and focused on the portals to my dreams.
To survive is to fight, to split open, to cry, to persevere into the next season of a dream’s life, to detach from the root, the branch, before hope dies, to fall or fly not knowing the outcome until free, that air before the landing or opening of wings…
Illusion of control, I never really drove, not on a road trip of my own; I rode round and round, hair in the breeze, holding on to the mane of carousel dreams, never free. Now I am. But the invisible reins of pleasing so long keeps me stalled in the corral; my voice on auto-pilot agreeing with everyone else. A passenger yet. I sit quietly still looking out the windows. But in the rearview mirrors, I frame my favorite parts, and up ahead in the near distance, I see the peaks of my heart’s desires. I think I am ready to take the wheel while listening to nature on God’s behalf appeal to my soul, that home, I’ve carried all along. I only needed to use my voice to steer to where I belong. I will need to put it in park for the final leg, so I can ride bareback on my stallion away from all of them…
Part three of an unnamed work in progress. Here are parts one and two: My Star and A Coat of Sunshine
Time to talk about the song.
When my son last visited, he played this song a lot on our Bluetooth speaker while he and his girlfriend and my daughter stayed up all hours playing board games (while I tried to sleep in the master suite of the ranch on the other side of the door). It’s a song he really feels, like the movie. At the first notes, when it comes on the radio now when he is not present, I immediately change it. To “control” my sadness. I try to avoid thinking about him and his sadness and his addiction, him as Bradley Cooper in the movie. It just hurts too much.
It was the mention of the movie and allusion to the song in passing on social media that stemmed this writing spree in me though. I connected with a fellow English teacher-poet on Instagram where I usually just post and go without actually socializing. I am one to put a song on repeat for hours, for days, to feel, to lose myself in the zone, to somewhere it seems I am being led, but only hitting repeat on max volume on my earbuds and a lot of patience simply lingering at the portal is necessary. To let myself feel without thinking for once. For a long while…
I listened to the soundtrack while sweating through yard work. Then I watched the video… and cried. What a sad movie. One of his favorites, of course. I could never remove the movie from myself now. I didn’t know that that Instagram post I “ran across” by someone I did not yet “follow” would lead me here, to pouring out prose, whether or not I post it or lock it up. I knew it was going to mean something though. I believe strongly in paths crossing for reasons.
I need this. To let my fingers fly free across the keyboard in prose again. To feel the release that comes from that and also through music.
I connect the most in songs to the non-words, the soul eruptions that exceed alpha-translation. That is what pain and love is, after all. And the fall. For me, it is the rise of the wailing “uhs” and “ohs,” and in voices like Lady Gaga’s and Calum Scott’s (“Dancing On My Own”).
In “Shallow,” that point is the moment of free fall. And free fall… could end or not end in a limited number of ways, albeit in limitless places, could be initiated or not initiated for so many reasons, could be the beginning or the end. For me, regarding all of this, it is that push to the edge at the end of my marriage, when I could no longer breathe, and my panic-attacked heart raced as if it were going to give out once and for all. The 2:42 point of no return is when I leapt, screaming on the way down that I have had all I could take, not being able to see the bottom, leaping entirely with the final no-turning-back point of faith, faith I would crash through the mirage of the surface into the “anything more than this.”
I am happy to report, it was the best jump I ever made. The one that saved me. I didn’t want to have wings. I just wanted to crash through it to the other side. Full speed. Once and for all.
I am also keenly aware that others feel that same desperateness and take the leap to leave this life altogether. The song’s narrator makes it clear she will never meet the ground though. I feel a need and calling to string nets for every jumper off course. So they are forced back up and can only pass through the same portal as me and her, only with faith and courage. In the more that is here in this life.
May angels escort each at the edge. To safety. To life.
We are never trapped, just fated to faulty perspective, succumb to specious perception; it’s all relevant, related –
one more rock-move away from the light on the other side of the avalanche,
one more “wrong” turn lost in the forest before hearing the anabranch…
much is necessarily experienced:
near suffocation sometimes the only way to motivate a life-saving change,
the legs of the journey in the humanless woods lead to the reflection and feeling of wounds,
and all paths probably have purpose among the universe’s higher powers.
Without the lonely, looping trails, we could not emerge anew with our truest selves
and others we met along the way not-so-coincidentally placed.
We are never trapped. We are never lost. At least not for very long.
No change was ever ignited without the spark. So many opportunities missed, passed up, though after being gifted matchsticks but still refusing to start the fire.
Laura Denise 