Early Spring

I think spring came early this year – instead of waiting for rain, I’m jumping in puddles and creating a tidal wave of hope, of joy and of belief that the wet is coming. To be honest though, I’m realizing that it’s already here. The leaves have started turning, not from green to orange, like fall – but picking up a vibrant green that reverberates in the rustle of wind. It’s like a song, really – a drumbeat. And the wind howls, carrying a lingering chill from the fading winter, but I’m not cold in the breeze. I feel alive, vibrant, like every breath is a gift, and the chance to tread water in this ocean is not salty, but sweet. I feel a lot of things, really, most of which I can’t even begin to describe. It’s heady, this. I feel like I’m floating on something much larger than air, that my travels up until now through the wilderland and the wilderness have been tests of a much greater sort, to herd me onto the path I’m at now. Where I belong. And I keep expecting at any moment to be welcomed home with open arms and a smile of knowing. A familiar voice whispering “where have you been, I’ve missed you…what took you so long?” A butterfly kept pace with my window on a slow part of my drive back home…home that now carries a new lingering scent to it – something I’ve tried to imagine, but fell far short of. I think my imagination has somewhat failed me – or maybe the brilliance of the reality of it all is just starting to shine too brightly for any imagination, skilled or not, to keep pace. I think that’s more likely, really.

I want to be outdoors, to constantly smell the distant ocean, the tang of salt water that this place imbibes year round, when the wind carries it just right. I want to run my fingers through the leaves, to reacquaint myself with the texture of the world. I want to know what the dirt feels like in my fingertips, I want to make mud castles to be washed away by the first new rain. I want to make sandcastles on the edges of tidepools, and smile when the waves come in and flood them. I feel a different kind of flooding. I don’t know where I am yet, I’m still becoming accustomed to the now, to the non-defined realities that are, and the tangible hopes of what may be. What may be soon….and the horizon is carrying a sandstorm of hope. Part of me regrets that by living here, I have given up the joy of mountaintops, where I can spread my arms open to the wind and shout at the top of my lungs that I’m here, that I made it – I climbed this high and this far, and really nothing’s going to stop me. Even the downward slopes here are a new chance to experience beauty, like the mud on my jeans when I inevitably fall. Enough to remind myself to keep a sure footing and stay grounded. I want to feel the sand between my toes and the tide that keeps rushing it away from me, leaving me off-balance but happy. I want to feel everything.

The truth is that fairy tales don’t start out with happily ever afters, they begin at the beginning, and their heroes are put to tests through fire. It’s not that I’m only looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but I’ve run my gauntlet for far too long, and I’m looking for those distant rays of sunlight. The kind that reach out from the sky and touch you, when you stand under them. But every story in the world starts with a simple beginning. And the funny thing about that is that usually you don’t know it’s happening until you’re in it. Until you’re caught in the moment unawares, like what happens when you hold on to the reigns of a particularly stubborn kite, and it knocks you over with its will to fly. That’s kind of how I feel – willing to fly. Flying has its dangers, you can run out of wind, or miss the window – it’s always possible to crash but… the fear of falling is not enough to make me want to prevent it from happening. I’m not afraid. I won’t be looking for a cliff to free-fall off into the waiting water any time soon, but not because I’m afraid of the fall. I just want to see what the world looks like on the way down, so I don’t miss a thing, before I’m embraced by that water and swallowed whole, where I’m free to dive and swim around and become a part of something…bigger. If I could, I’d jump into the sky, but I think the ocean will do. It’s never let me down, that way.

If I just closed my eyes at this moment, I can still feel that wind. Wind in Sunshine. I thought my wings might have been cut, at some point, but no. They were there all along. I just had to be willing to fly.

“just let go…I’ll be here to keep you grounded” Kennedy…to Willow.