“Whatcha doin’?” my teacher friend across the outdoor space between our classroom doors says, popping her head out.
“Just capturing poems I’ve passed by,” I say, still hunched over close to the sandy ground just before school started. “You know.”
I captured the wildflower oasis and the non-fool’s gold recently but have since discovered the plank in the magical world beneath our giant steps…
Peace of Plank
I wish I could have been afforded the plank instead of all the times each “he” just yanked my never-grounded footing away, the sharks themselves. The plank in the desert beneath me now, still symbolic of how we can feel so nudged toward the apparent doom to drown, prisoners and victims until the spell is unbound and we are able to see that the moat was always a mirage, and we always possessed the power to simply step off into the safety of our selves, trusting God would never let us down, and if we ever did get pushed into the deep, what He personally pre-planted within us each would be all the buoyancy we need.
Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
6 In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
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…
Laura Denise 