You Would Have

If you had been sitting at the edge of the field, quietly going about the busy work of observing, you might have noticed her creep out from among the trees. You might have thought she was looking for something – food or water or a place that felt safe enough to rest. You might have even considered that she was looking for you, although you would have been certain that was a foolish thought to think.

But she would have stared at you so intently that you would have been forced to think it. You would have had to be amazed at the way her soft body could become so stiff.  You would have had to be humbled by her presence.

If you had seen the fawn emerge from the woods, you would have felt lucky. You would have felt as though you were witnessing something truly great. You would have felt her eyes watching you as you watched her. You would have noticed the way she made herself look so still and calm, though you knew there was terror beneath. You would have admired that. You would have thought “that is no easy task.”

Because it would have made you think about your own life and body, so dependent upon one another, and fleeting. You would have thought about what people saw when they saw you. You would have wondered if there was anything to admire. You would have asked yourself if your fear had ever looked so brave.

You would have considered the way you are forever moving in and out of the dark woods in search of things. You would have realized this was courage. You would have understood in those few moments that there is no easy task, or easy body, or easy life. You would have recognized that there are only trees and fields and the creatures struggling to survive among them. You would have known everything is worth admiring. You would have been comforted by that thought.

And when the fawn finally took her eyes off of you, you would have questioned whether she had been forced to succumb to her fear or if she had found the strength to overcome it. You would have watched her run back into the woods and wondered whether it was away from something or towards it. You would have realized that none of this ultimately mattered.

Because what you would have found beautiful about her was not the direction she moved, but that she was moving, that she could be paralyzed by fear in one moment, and be dashing through the world in the next. If you had seen her, you would have loved her. You would have delighted in the way her starting and stopping so closely resembled your own.

The River

Some days the river is so sparkling that it appears solid. You feel as though you could almost walk across its shimmering surface, gleaming in the sunlight, like ice. And yet you know that it is tender and soft. Breakable, almost, were it not for the way it knows how to heal. Drop something heavy into it. Admire the way it erases the transgression of its surface with a slow whisper of lapping water. Watch the river swallow the heaviness, and then continue on. Learn this lesson.

The river continues, and in that way, it is both constant and forever changing. It is always the river, but it is also never quite the same. We’re not so different, are we? Forever ourselves, but always different than we were just a moment ago. Forever learning and evolving and continuing on. Forever moving, hard and soft as the river.

Answers always lead to more questions. One question always leads to another. The world doesn’t wait for us to catch up. Sometimes it feels as though I am just treading water, but in a way, that too, is movement.

Your body knows how to heal itself like the river. Wounds slowly become scabs, which eventually disappear. Or they leave scars, which you forever carry with you as the faint memory of your pain. But in a way, that too, is healing.

You have swallowed heaviness, no matter who you are, no matter if you have acknowledged it or not. You have sometimes wanted to appear solid. You have sometimes shined your surface. You have sometimes depended on your ability to seem cold, like ice.

And yet you know that you are tender and soft. Breakable, almost, were it not for the way you have yet to be broken. Because somehow, despite the unbearable weight that is sometimes dropped into your life, you are still here, surviving. You are still moving forward, continuing on. There are still more questions to be asked, and answers to be found. And then there will be more.

And you will keep rushing toward them, because this is what it means to be alive.

Time will float away, like the river. It will move too quickly and too slowly all at once. It will continue to change you. You will always be you, but you will always be different versions of you. But in a way, that too, is consistency.

You have learned this lesson at least once. You will learn it again and again. One revelation leads to another. You will forever be asking the important questions, whose answers are never quite the same.

Who am I? What do I want? What can I create? How do I love this world? How can I not love this world? How do I move forward, like the river? How do I make myself sparkle, like ice?

Meanwhile the river rushes forward. It doesn’t ask such questions. It simply continues on, healing itself in slow whispers. But in a way, that too, is an answer.

X’s and O’s

My mother always lined the bottom of her cards with X’s and O’s. It’s one of the many things I’m grateful to have learned from her. I write them often, perhaps too often, perhaps to the point where their intended meaning gets lost.

Still, sometimes those letters are exactly enough. Sometimes they are more meaningful than the hundred words preceding them. Sometimes they are the most important part of my messages.

How do you write a hug? How do you put into words the resplendent joy of pressing your body against another and feeling them tightly hold you back? How can you ever, in any language, with thousands upon thousands of available words, describe a kiss? What if these things are so extraordinary that they can only be represented by an ‘X’ and an ‘O’? What if they are as simple and as complex as that?

What if the most powerful word is love?

Love for parents.
Love for children.
Love for siblings.
Love for friends.
Love for boyfriends and girlfriends and spouses.
Love for animals.
Love for flowers.
Love for trees.
Love for the ground beneath our feet and the sky above our heads.
Love for rivers and lakes and oceans.
Love for the water in our cups.
Love for the food on our tables.
Love for the sun and the moon and the stars.
Love for literature.
Love for history.
Love for those who fought for our present.
Love for those who fight for the future.
Love for kindness.
Love for mischief.
Love for laughter and those who share it.
Love for those who are gone and those who remain.
Love for people.
Love for ourselves.
Love for life.

Love for love, a word I use often, perhaps too often, but entirely not enough. It is a magical word. It applies to so many and so much. It changes the way we think and see and act. It defines us. It saves us. It is the greatest thing we can feel and the most significant thing we can say. It is what every word I have ever written has been an expression of. It is X’s and it is O’s. It is what breaks our hearts, by which I mean, it is what breaks us open, forever.

You have felt it, I’m sure, that moment when the flower of your body opened to the sweet nectar of the world. Did you drink it in? Did you share it? Did you understand what it was? Did you spend every moment delighting in the love all around you? Did you change your life?

Did you awake this morning on Valentine’s Day madly in love with the world? If not, find that love now. You know how to do it. You’ve known how to do it all along. It is as simple and as complex as the blossoming of petals, as hugs and kisses, as XOXO.

In Praise of Feet

I didn’t begin walking until much later than the other children. I seemed perfectly content to sit and watch my peers toddle around our preschool classroom, or so I’m told. My parents worried, as parents do, that I appeared to have no interest in becoming independently mobile. It has been a continuing theme throughout my life to only make moves when I feel it’s right. I’m always waiting for my moment.

I took my first steps in England. There was no stumbling, no uneasiness to it. I in no way resembled a fawn learning how to use its legs. I just stood up and walked the length of an English garden, and that was it. I was suddenly walking, as though I had been practicing in secret, as though I had known how to do it all along. That afternoon I was ready, and so I began.

And I’ve never stopped. Sometimes all of the places I’ve been to and things I’ve experienced become intertwined in my memory with each other and with books I’ve read, movies I’ve seen, dreams I’ve had. Sometimes the past becomes nothing more than a series of stories I’ve heard and told.

But my feet remain the truth, the evidence, the division between fact and fiction. These feet have walked through English gardens, through Canadian forests, through the fields of India. They have hiked up the Himalayas and strolled through the streets of Paris. They have been washed in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, blessed in the Ganges. They have squished in the mud of rainy concert venues, moving in time with the music. They have danced. They have jumped.  They have skipped. They have endured.

They have felt the sweet coolness of summer grass and the frigidness of snow. They have been burned and soothed on the beaches of New Jersey, Spain, France, Barbados, California, and Goa. They have led me through the busy streets of Philadelphia, New York, Boston, DC, Delhi, Amsterdam, Prague, London, and Rome. They have stood with me in quiet stillness on the hillsides of Ireland and Scotland.

They have taken me through churches and synagogues and mosques. They have journeyed with me through museums around the world. They have stomped along with cattle and horses and elephants. They have shopped in stores and open markets and yard sales. They have wandered through libraries and bookstores for hours. They have sat patiently through movies and concerts and plays.

They have led me on and off the stage. They have exercised with me and meditated with me. They have walked miles upon miles for charity. They have grown tough in the summers and soft in the winters. They have splashed in newly formed puddles and felt the harsh concrete on their soles. Their nails have been painted every color of the rainbow at least once and they have been placed inside every kind of shoe imaginable. They have been cut and bruised and blistered and stung, but they have also been tenderly washed and soaked and rubbed.

They have been cursed for their pain, but mostly, they have been loved for their purpose. This is what it means to love your body. Even if you have yet to learn how to love it as a whole, its individual parts deserve our praise.

Praise for the eyes that help me see the world. Praise for the ears that help me listen to others speak and cry and sing. Praise for the nose that helps me appreciate the scent of rain and flowers in spring. Praise for the mouth that helps me voice my opinions and love, that allows me to taste the delicious offerings of this life. Praise for the arms that hold others between them, that lift children up, that hug tightly. Praise for the hands that allow me to write.

Praise for the feet, that miraculous pair, who give so much and ask for so little in return. Praise for the way they have allowed me to move, and explore, and discover beauty everywhere.

One day in an English garden I stood up and walked, and my life has never been the same since. For that too, I give praise.