Open at last
to sand and sea
and air and light;
we returned you
(home),
and
through you
we returned
me to
me.
How do you define yourself?
What do you feel when you look inward?
Does the self you show the world match the self inside?
Of course it would be this word, today. When there are two weeks left and I’m ready; when I’ve found what I didn’t know I needed, nearly 52 weeks ago when I still thought I was doing this for others. When it’s time to let the words find their own rhythm again. When I’m ready to hand it over.
When, in gently returning the fire-clean remnants of a soul-sibling’s physical body to the earth, in crossing decades and seemingly insurmountable struggles we came together, when I made it happen for myself exactly as I needed to, and the parts I couldn’t control fell beautifully, startlingly, horrifically, and then so very softly and perfectly into place.
When it’s OK because I’ve been handed a key, and several final pieces of the puzzle, and safety nets of many fabrics.
I got something wrong in The Word for This, in the telling of my story, the telling of my self. The hammock, the shape of my life now, was the wrong image.
It wasn’t a hammock. It was the netting of creatures of the sea. Not to capture, but simply to hold.
Simply to hold me, and to keep me safe.