There is a tremendous nerve the sun has to set, to paint the sky burnt orange and red. Does it not know my world has been torn apart? Does it not care that I woke up crying? Does it see my tears now at all?
I am writing outside, the street lamps just turned on. I do not accept the universe's gesture. Giving me light to write is sympathy that does nothing to un-ruin my world. Give me something better, like a complete do over. Let’s start from day one when life on earth was a single celled bacteria.
But instead I am still at the beach. A man rides a skateboard, toddlers do a double take watching him go pass. They now know what they want to be when they grow up. They are so, so excited.
I hold their future in my hand. I feel it pulsating, the blood trickling down my arm. I am stained but I am alive. They are also alive, fearlessly so, knowing their future is a bright product of hope. Hope they trust fully.
All the crumbling around me is metaphoric. The ground is shaking and shifting and I can seemingly only explain it. When I look out at the water, all is the same. The ocean ripples. The grass is unabashedly green. The words to the songs on the radio haven’t changed.
The idea that we might be okay creeps up my spine. This hope is an overstayed houseguest. Can it not see that I am tired? I want to sleep. I want days to pass, years. I want the sinking of death.
Instead I am met with the glistening wings of hope, offering me a ride. You will sleep, you will cry, you will declare that you’ve given up, but you will rise again. Your strength, the damn thing that is, is persistent.
I find courage tucked into flower petals, tossed with frisbees, between cartons at the farmers market. The world keeps spinning. Wind blows. The sun sets then rises. Not in spite of us but because of us. There is something in the human spirit that is still worth showing up for.
The world, with its stubbornly still setting sun, is cradling us. Believing over and over in our ability to rise again.
you weave the imagery of channeling expansion so elegantly 🌸 “giving in” is so often linked to death/loss, the rhythms of the sun so often to rising/comfort/reliability (ultimately, a reason to have hope), and you have reversed the two to express the integration of the two, the ability to hold multiple realities and still persist toward timelines where we experience liberation 🩷 thank you
reading this made me feel like the drunk friend whenever the entire group got to go out yelling "I NEEDED THISSS"