“I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared wish for

may once again spring clear
without my contriving.

If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,

streaming through widening channels
into an open sea.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

There is this place that I continue to return to, again and again.

It ebbs and it flows and sometimes it’s gentle, like the water lapping onto the shore, asking the sand and rocks to join in the dance of the sea; other times, it’s a tidal wave so big, so strong, that I’m certain that the push of the wave and the pull of the tide are in it together, hoping to claim their next prize for the underwater world (that surely exists).

Moments that bring me back, to here and now, seem far and few between and part of me tires of the search for a place to rest my achy body and weary mind.

The other part is my warrior and she is the one that brings me back up onto my feet, lifting all ten of my toes and rooting them into the earth.

She is the one that holds space, so that sadness can exist in love…and with love.

She is the one, I’m sure, that tells my dog when to lick my face and wrap his paws around me, holding me in his sweet dog embrace.

Love comes in many forms and shapes and sometimes, she is disguised and I don’t recognize that it’s her standing right in front of me, with those soft, kind, strong eyes, staring back at me.

I am beginning to understand, now, that this isn’t something for the faint of heart; there will be times when the skies are clear and times when the skies are gray.

This is life.

This is my life.

I am my warrior and I wish that I could take my heart from my chest and crack her open, for you.

Then you would see, you would know, for sure, that everything written within her walls, each word, memory, idea, thought, feeling—that everything—everything—is written with love.

Sing it, Nina.

*This piece was adapted from my blog, onbeinglove. 

~

Editor: Kate Bartolotta

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