Try it…

I have this thing with birds. Always have. Endlessly fascinated by all they are. The ability to soar, to see the big picture from up so high. The instinct to nest and care. To venture out and return back home. The innate knowledge to migrate. The security of solitude with the safety of numbers…

My Dad named me after a tree. One of my favorite things growing up was to ask him why he chose my name. Each time he told a different story. Some were variations of the same, most had never been told before. As much with him, I’m still unsure which was true. Or if they all were.

One of my favorites was about birds. They were free but I was steady. Strong. Rooted. Always that safe haven to return to build their home. Eventually they’d fly away, but the tree remained. Until next time. The next bird. The next season.

And in this new life that has come back to be often. Something stashed away for quite some time now floods in. His reminder.

I’ve battled which part is me, which role to assume. To stand strong or to soar. The possibility in each seems too great to claim. Beyond me.

So, in those times I look towards innocence. To the one in my life who “knows” so little but grasps so much. And in one of those moments when I felt so far from either, I heard a declaration that said it all…

“Look Mommy, I can make even the shy bird fly. Try it Mommy, you’re like magic too.”

And I knew.

Who’s Counting

It may have taken all that time, or maybe it’s just beginning. 7 years if you add them up. Maybe more. I say less. Realizations pour in, with a flooding, with a weakness. An urgency and patience that’s all the same. To realize it’s impossible to be everything to everyone if you’re nothing to yourself.

And in time it seems so clear that things left behind. Forgotten. Cut off. Never had to be. That coexistence would have… could have been, reality – had I just the courage. Had intimidation, infatuation, held a weaker grasp.

Inner strength breeds stature. Foundation built upon relationship when all else was crumbling. Or was it the catalyst? But the grin says, “it all makes sense now”. Or glimpses say the least.

So in searching, back I go. To the place I lost it all. Where in gaining anew, so much was shattered. In fulfilling, emptiness calls and is replaced again by awakening.

Destruction and growth, emerging from a broken timepiece. I see in pictures, photographs. Snippets of conversation. I replay movie reels that are my own reality. If possession of no one else.

Discovering what matters more than that leads right back to the beginning.