Everyone Can See The Wind Blow
The problem with writing is that in order for the words to make their way from my heart onto the page, I must face the truth. The problem with the truth is that it doesn’t come wrapped in pretty paper and garnished with a bow. It is messy. Complicated. Not always presentable, not easily parted with. If I give the words away what do I hide behind? What do I have to keep me company? There is no hiding behind the lines. On the page the words are stripped away and the writer is left bare. Naked. And alone.
If I write this down, you will see my brokenness. You will see my bones. And the hardest part; if I write this down, I’ll have to let it go.
I read a passage in a book once that I have come to believe is true. A true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change you life. They tear down your walls and smack you awake. They come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself, and then they leave… Your job is to let them go.
It is true because I have to believe there is a reason for this. It is true because I have met this person and I have been brought to my own attention. In the mirror they held up to me I have seen beneath my skin, deeper than my bones and into the farthest corners of my heart. I have been shown to places in my being I only dreamed existed.
In loving them I have witnessed the best of me and I have seen my worst. There were times I did not want to accept the truth they offered. Times I pushed them away out of fear they might be right. Times I did not believe I was worth the love that was offered so selflessly. In the time I spent wrapped up in his soul, I discovered what love is. It is patient and full of hope. It is like breathing in its effortlessness and in its perseverance in times when air is scarce to find.
He carried me to safety, allowed me the freedom to sing my song, and gave me the keys to my dreams.
I want to be angry with him. I want to scream. How could take me all this way, just in time to let me go? How could you lead me to the door and make me walk through on my own? I want to be angry but I know that he is just doing his job. Just doing what soul mates have to do. Just breaking open my heart so that new light may get through. Giving me the chance to get so desperate, so scared, I’ll have to transform.
There. The words are on the page now. I am doing my job. I am letting go.
Mom said,
September 16, 2009 at 4:19 am
Someone once wrote that life is like being on a trapeze. We go back and forth with the motion, continuously, hipnotically, in love with the sway. And then, one day we see another trapeze. We know we need to reach for it, but are too afraid. We cling to our current swing. Back and forth. Back and forth. And then, one day, we leap.
The greatest growth is in that moment between trapeze’s where we are suspended in mid air, not attached to anything. Letting go of nothing. Holding onto nothing.
You are in midair, my lovely daughter. In letting go, you are holding onto the belief that life is a miraculous adventure. You are letting go and singing your song, transforming the world with every breath you breathe, every note you sing.
Love you more than all the letters that will ever fall upon a page and make up words and sentences and paragraphs and pages and books and….
Love you.
mom