The Ugly and the Crooked

Sometimes things happen all at once.

Sometimes things get messy and the Universe calls for you to lose some of the things you were holding so you may better see what could be in your hands. This week the following happened: 

I lost my wallet. 

Something off-putting happened with some medication of mine. 

I went to my father's birthday empty handed after some missed communications.

I was reminded of others' creativity and that I am squandering what little I have.

The bike I've had for over ten years was stolen. 

I got sick.

After a day of feeling sad about all of these things, I experienced a moment of bravery. I sent a letter to a photographer who photographed a friend's wedding and whose website I've been following since. I am drawn to the way she uses light and color and the way she captures moments. I feel like there is a lot I could possibly learn from this person and I finally worked up the courage to contact her and ask if we could meet and discuss a possible apprenticeship. It felt like a long shot at the time, but I wanted to feel as though I was at least trying to make an effort to meet the Universe halfway. Shockingly, she replied within 24 hours saying she'd be happy to meet with me and discuss an arrangement. The logical part of my brain, with its cogs always turning and its propellers whirring, tells me that there's a very good chance that, like any apprenticeship, this one will cost money that I don't have and cannot get. I know this is the likely ending to this story, but I am choosing to fight The Dread and hold off worrying until I need to. Perhaps I won't need to. Stranger things have happened, after all.

I am trying to become more brave these days. It is not easy, as I so often get lost on the Land of No Words. That place I wall up in after some sensory part of my anatomy sends signals that it is no longer safe to stretch out in a meadow where the other animals graze and then run. There is a certain feeling of invincibility that comes with bearing all honestly and without hesitance. I would like to get the point in my life where I can look into my own chest and point at the bones that are broken and the lung that is collapsed and repair them with air from whispered secrets and the mud dug up from the Kinnickinnic, the river I jump into during the winter to remember the feel of my own skin. I want to look my faults in the face and smile at them. I want the self confidence to enter the Land of No Words when it is time to observe and not to judge, to reflect and not to hold back, to absorb and not to lament the Words That Are Gone. I want my silence to be something I choose instead of something I am forced into. 

This morning I faltered in that bravery. I spent the night dreaming of snakes I could not speak to or keep from striking at my ankles. At 6am I got up and forced myself to eat some breakfast that squirmed around in my stomach with the words I didn't say and the memory of snakes. I kept those words behind my teeth for the sole reason of wishing to conceal my loneliness and not to call out the animal that ran. I will not always be as brave under fire as I'd like to be, but I shall see that Fear for what it is and show it that I know its name. I await a letter from a friend in the mountains who knows what it is to speak truths through the ice that lurks under the tongue. I will visit her on the mountain next year and we will talk of time and of change and how far from linear they seem. We will draw lines and shapes on maps and drink wine on either side of an oil lamp and take the dogs up the mountain and take a piece back down. I look forward to this. I look forward to growth that shows the ugly and the crooked. I look forward to exploring the beauty of that process.