Fear Not

Fear is the easy way out. When I choose it, I know I’m backing off a challenge. I’m sticking my head in the mud, so to speak, and with fear I have an excuse to not face the thing that I don’t want to deal with. With fear, I badger myself when something doesn’t go as expected. It is entwining, restricting, and I can’t imagine it loosening its grip unless I have the mental stamina to release it. I get caught in dark thoughts about my abilities, my weaknesses, my deficits. Fear leaves me feeling paralyzed, suffocated, as if I need something external to come save me. 

I have become accustomed to choosing fear most of my life.

When I put fear aside I feel alive, invigorated. I feel that possibilities are endless and even when I lose, even if I don’t achieve what I set out to accomplish, I still feel I have overcome. It takes more work to be constructive, to strategize a solution, and then pursue it. It takes commitment to a hypothesis and releasing ego if the answer is not right. I can look honestly at myself and course correct when need be. 

The truth is I just need to choose to save myself from my dark thoughts. I can put down the blade I’m using to cut away at my existence and with a calm hand, hold the fear like a hurt bird who just needs time to fly again. It is is an indulgence to believe I’m not good enough and to muddle in that puddle of self-loathing. It takes gumption to push aside those heavy thoughts and continue moving forward with the belief that I have what it takes to achieve my desires.

Mothering

Take me with you into the adventures of your life. 

Show me the things that get you excited. 

Tell me why you want to try something new. 

I want to bear witness to your living, I want to be a part of your dream. 

I am a moon orbiting your world, watching from afar. 

Occasionally you look back at me and feel my glowing presence.

Constricting

Matilda hadn’t visited in ages. The woman disappeared into the tending of her days and Matilda fell to the background of her being. Of course she was still there but she remained untapped in the bustle of the holidays and the fresh new year. It was becoming clear though that she was needed to close the circle; to help the woman weave together the end of one year and the beginning of another. So she came for a visit amidst the falling flakes of snow. She arrived swirling towards the woman’s house in a flurry of delicate chaos. Inside the home, the energy reflected nothing of the movement outside. The woman had finally found a sense of peace in the electricity of the new year. She lingered in it like she would a luxurious bath, soaking it in and letting it wrap around her, comforting her and releasing a tightness she had been holding for months now. She was yearning for something outside being. As she recognized this craving, a single oak leaf floated through the lightly falling flakes. It was a giant in a sea of delicate art. It's contrasting presence called to her and she gathered her coat to go stand in the snow. She wanted to be immersed in the beautiful, delicate chaos and waken to the unexpected thrill that comes from feeling cold. 

A squirrel dangled upside down on the bird feeder. It’s oversized tail wrapped around the top as its feet created feats of dexterity holding on so it could eat. The birds hid eagerly int he tree waiting for it to disappear. 

She felt the crisp air in her lungs. There was a sensation which felt good when she expected it to feel lonely and frigid. She too felt as if the deep frozen parts of her being we’re welcoming her to witness the beauty that formed from hardened fluidity. The snow falling faster as the flakes were growing larger.  She thought about the warmth of her stove and the satisfaction of having something brewing a top it all day. The inside was calling her back to the warmth to the light. A candle flickered on her table, she could see it from the yard and yet she let it be. A deep knowing told her there would always be a way to go back and get warm. For now, the majesty of the environment was where she was being drawn. 

The new snow of this fresh year was no blizzard but rather the clouds releasing an energy that had built up and she felt akin to this liberation. It felt utterly kindred to her: the fresh release falling on old snow and ice. She marveled at what she had released from her life, many movements felt like an uncontrollable storm of sorts as the weight of what she been holding finally reached a breaking point she could no longer corral. She turned to face the barrage of expectations, emotions, fears and hopes that she carried for so long and she exhaled. She stepped aside. She opened up to face the fear she anticipated and found the beauty of letting go. 

The air was crisp and her intellect taut, it had been months since she felt so immersed in the place she physically inhabited. She watched it all come down, falling gently and landing upon the surface of her world. Soon it would transform, seep into the ground and saturate the unseen and she would thirst no more. She was filled with the promise of movement, the beauty of chaos and the unquestionable truth that this too will pass. 

Life was fully altered now. She could no longer follow the path back to where she had been. It would be spring before that way would be uncovered and somehow she knew it would no longer be the right way to move. The flakes fell upon her face and softened into her skin. There was a delicate kinship to this season that at first presented itself is hard and cold. It had taken her years to understand it’s subtleties and dance. Sometimes we must grow hard, constrict then tip over and spill out. She no longer felt somber or stoic about this winter. The birds reminded her of the lightness of being; the color and delight in nature. They pecked at the food in the feeder, the squirrel had long since gone.

Lost in Time

I am circling back now, almost two weeks later, since I didn't post this on your actual birthday (though it will look like it when I look back). The feeling of incompleteness sat with me like an empty ache and I wanted to stick to my tradition. 

I miss you in the mundane moments of daily life, though you never really were too involved in those moments the older I got. I am entrenched in the days, unloading the dishwasher and tightening the mittens on small hands. I am wearing comfy clothes and standing in my house looking wearily around. Here you are, still young; about to have a cigarette and looking weary and hopeful all at the same time. I miss you still. 

Stored Moments

I’m thinking about how a person knits two years together. They are seamless in fact but they are definitive a measurement, created from some being long ago. We continue to agree that this is the way and yet in the silence of the morning, alone with our breath, we each know we have our own way of measuring the phases we move through.

The Horizon

It is time. The edges of the day are frayed and my curves have grown brittle. I am going stiff where life once flourished. You can see the lines from afar. My breath grows more shallow, my oceans less deep. The mysteries of my existence are either being fully unveiled or or will be lost completely. I cannot give any more. I have a little left and there are a few left to care. I have learned to let go of the beauty I once crafted so delicately. Life was a dance and now I can barely shuffle my feet. I am in for the deep good night. I am ready to lay dormant. I no longer crave to unfurl, I crave to recover.

Perhaps each being comes into their existence as a beautiful flower only to experience disintegration across a lifetime. Decomposition starts long before dying. We fall apart long before we truly see any signs. Then it becomes too late: we are captured, entangled, getting eaten away slowly. Until we too are shuffling towards death's door; until we too fear the brittle sensitivities of a body that can no longer stand the gravity that comes with the force of living. Slowly we slow down until moving becomes too much. It can take a lot of time for the breath of life to leave at space. Once it’s gone, only stardust remains, mingling with the universe until the energy dissipates completely.

How does the Earth die? It’s not in one final quick flash. We all want it to be that way but death is rarely quick and clean. Rather it comes slowly across the horizon; steady in movements but working at its own speed. It is a cowboy, an illusion disappearing and reappearing along the prairie. We fear its approach, crave its absence and can’t stop watching it. Surely though it is coming and the approach is nothing predictable. Should we make ourselves comfortable or prepare to fight?