I think I would cry if the tears would help: I have cried and ranted, I have talked and texted, I have written and thought.

I wear this moment like a shawl that won’t quite cover me. It feels comforting to be covered, but it’s summer and I sweat. I want to cover my head and shoulders. I want to fill me ears with birdsong. I want to let care roll itself into a ball I can kick away and give to someone else with stronger hands and more sturdy heart.

I want to be here now.

I am etching my way there making meaning from letters that form words to paint the picture I cannot take. I want to dig in my heels and hang from the rafters at the same time: balancing with my head in heaven and my feet in earth.

I want to meet my deepest desire with nothing but my heart but don’t know if my heart can hold it. I don’t know if my heart can pump that in my veins before my blood finds the surface and I find a vein.

I don’t want to die.

I want to live with passion and hope as the best friends they’ve always been. I want to take my dreams and give them wings to soar on the wind and float in the ether. I want to stop hovering between here and there, now and again, this and that. I want to stand in the light that is everywhere and shine with the divine that lives within and without.

I want to take all my prayers and make them into a tapestry of reds and yellows, oranges and pinks, lavenders and blues. I want the sunrise to rest on my mantle and I want its promise not to be broken. But promises are broken.

And life will take what we don’t give it.

I want to give it all of me: my mind, my heart, my spirit, my emotion…my blinking eyes and wriggling toes and middle aged belly.

I wish my wishes would come true. I wish my prayers weren’t answered with flat tires and credit cards with interest too high for anyone who has nothing.

I want to land on my hands and walk backwards because the point of view is refreshing.

I want to turn my life upside down and inside out and learn the riddle of one-hand clapping. I want a koan that will break my spirit and know love’s riddle cannot be solved.

I want to take love like the salve it is and rub my temples. I want to chant the Lord’s prayer and pretend I am Catholic because then maybe a ritual would heal me. I want the rituals I know to unbury the unknown.

I want to sit up and give myself a hug because I know I need one. I want to embrace what is even when I don’t know what is and be comfortable with the not knowing.

I want to know what I don’t know and stop pretending knowing would make a difference.

I want to stop pretending I am okay and saying it’s all good because really, it isn’t. It’s not bad either. It just is what it is and though it’s all a journey on spaceship earth, this now and that then, it will never come again. Experience shows me more experience and I don’t know that I can hold anymore.

So I won’t. I will let go. I will breathe in the wind and wetness of the night and know the moon has my back and remember I am lucky

I can still remember when Mom cannot and know there’s too much I have forgotten: like when to be quiet and when to speak, like holding on never worked any more than letting loss in let me go, like being smart is as much a curse as a blessing when compassion gives so much more. I want to remember compassion in every act.

I want to take kindness and build it a home.

I want to keep my home: it’s more than a house or a mortgage but stands for all it holds. I want to hold all I have known in this moment and let the ebbing tear find my cheek. I want tonight to be over so the answers I seek would be close as the air I breathe. I want to remember what I forget: no answer is final.

Change is all I can count on today.

So I will make change and be change and embrace change and maybe next time I pray I won’t say the Lord’s prayer; I’ll just hold my kitten and rub her nose knowing we all need. And need can define anyone unless you stare her in the eye and remember it’s okay to blink. There is no winning or losing.

All I have is all I am. All I am is all I have.

And that’s this moment, a teetering truth.

 

 

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Ed: Brianna Bemel