Building Wings on the Way Down

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be too cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
~ Annie Dillard

Today I wrote the lyrics for a song ~ I cannot wait to get my hands on the keyboard and compose the music ~ I can hear it in my head already. No title yet, but it deals with risk and vulnerability and how when one does not have all the answers and cannot see what lies ahead, it is frightening….but also freeing. Because if you believe that everything happens for a reason and that everything you experience is just another chance to grow, then you have nothing to lose.

Brave words indeed. I am a great talker of ideals and theories. But once reality is looking into my eyes, all words fail and I find I cannot hold its gaze. Whatever the reason (personality, temperament, environment, family of origin), matters of the heart are especially difficult to express. Even my poetry does not always speak the whole truth.

But not because I am afraid of the truth or believe in half-truths. Truth is messy. It is passionate, intense, earthy. It is personal, vulnerable, fragile. Soft and strong. It will walk through fire and rock your world. It is also, in the words of a friend, extremely enticing, enchanting, irresistible, and undeniable! Yet the merest breath of rejection at best and apathy at worst will crush its heart and bolt the door against you.

This song speaks to that fear ~ the fear of being swept away, of being frightened at losing control, of not knowing what lies down the road. And what is worse, not knowing what you want.

But after all is said and done ~ that is okay.

There’s an old cliché that says that if you name your fear, you will then have power over it. This song asks that even if the path before you ends up being not the one you want or need, what is there to lose in taking it? You will never know until you go down it.

Indeed. The question now is….will the gate at the beginning of that path swing open? Or remain closed.

Oremus pro invicem,
Mikaela