some days it happens. i just. can’t. any. longer. the points of connection, the joints can no longer bear the weight and frenzied movement of it all. the baggage, the excess, the rotten and rotting. the expecting to be able to dance en pointe in concrete sneakers.

and always trying to dance en pointe in concrete sneakers.

patience does not come easily to me. I must sit still and endure the storm, match my breath with its bluster and offer a quiet space before Patience will slowly acknowledge me and perhaps address me. If I’m lucky and sit just so, Patience will melt lovingly into my lap and purr. For a moment.

Enduring the storm, though, is difficult. The air around me swirls, and howls, and shrieks, it lays jab after jab, a right hook, jab, jab, right cross… It screams at me the poisoned truths of a wounded, tired spirit. Yet I must sit, quietly, unmoving, the weeble-wobble that never falls down. These winter storms are good drills for keeping my shit together. a strong core is essential in resisting all the forces that work to break me. the pain of the world pushing me this way, the suffering of an offended spirit pulling me that way. And always, there is Perfect, standing over me, watching for where my balance is weak and shoving my face in the dirt.

Sometimes Perfect succeeds in knocking me over. And i become Unhinged. Patience vanishes, the Cheshire Cat’s cousin just realizing he has some good mushrooms to share. Without its weight and stability, my parts fly around in the typhoon. my heart joins the oak and sycamore branches, and the pieces of siding, and lawn furniture, all just flailing in the wind, hurled through the air, so many particles of life, projectiles colliding in midair. I suppose if I really think about it, it could be like the ultimate carnival ride. There could be a thrilling, sublime freedom in letting go, all of my bits and pieces scattering to the ends of the earth. We all want to fly, right?

some days i let it happen. i welcome the disintegration, the deconstruction. i revel in the freedom of my pieces flying through all of space and time, i join the raucous wailing. i invite the Perfect to a duel, and i match every landed blow with a loving embrace of my own. i give myself over to this dance, and i marvel at the theater of it. i sit still and offer space for the spectacle to play.

and then, if i sit just so, all of my pieces find their way back together and offer a quiet space for Patience to circle, around, around, and melt lovingly into my lap. for a moment.