Maya Angelou's obit would loom before the section of the obituaries. Her death announced on the front page of newspapers would also come on the first page of the obituary section because of the luck of the draw her last name had when it began with the letter A. So many letters fall in-between. You rooted further down the line of letters when you married, going from E to S.
You wonder about the in-between, the pause between the exhalation and the inhalation, the pause that gives rise to the next movement of breath you take for granted until it is no longer present, and what remains is your life settled in print on page. You wonder will you go out on the in breath, or the out like your writing teacher, Natalie, once asked. And the dramatic pause that lives between the inhalation and the exhalation, how big will it be? (And yet, in your study of breath, you learned a little trick if you want to lengthen your inhalation focus on a longer exhalation it will happen without force on the inhalation and you will feel calmer.)
Sometimes like today, the ferns blowing in the wind with the summer sun shining on the greenness of the earth you wonder at yourself and how much you take being in a body for granted. How you just presume your life will follow day after day. Sometimes this presumption when it rises to the surface catches you off guard, takes your breath away, and your heart aches at how much you will miss this life when it is no longer your life. It's sometimes a dull ache and other times quite sharp. You feel your breath, and your body spiraling into form and light and pattern, and you can feel your heart center opening to receive more of what your life has to offer, and you think you are preparing to fly. Yet, some voice inside says humans don't fly. You are told yogis do, and can and you wonder its truthfulness? You feel that sacred soft space at your back body between your shoulder blades where they meet your spine, and you imagine your wings growing out from that soft heart center and expanding like angel wings--shimmery and strong, shades of white iridescent light. And you sit a little taller while you sit on your front stoops watching those ferns sing in the wind.
You sit, amazed at all that was hidden in the winter months from your view, all that slumbered beneath the thick sheets and layers of ice and snow and polar winds. These ferns you think would never survive that howling wind that whipped through the landscape carving out crusted snow dunes, yet they laid buried beneath snow and ice and soil. And you remember your delight when your footing fell through the snow's crust in March giving way to the promise that the greens of the earth would once again reveal itself, because you began to wonder if it would. Your winter so cold.
When your seven year old boy returned home from school angry at being left out and hurting himself on the playground during free time, you were certain that some sunshine and grass on his bare feet would reconnect him to his goodness, his shiny self, his body. And so, you knelt down as he splayed himself defeated on the douglas fir porch floor and peeled off his shin high socks inviting him and his bare feet back outside to the earth's green carpet. Reluctant he went. And you watched him, and wondered about the final retreat back to the earth's soil is it met with reluctance? Do you return to your body with resistance? Do you find your breath with revere? Does loving yourself mean as Thich Naht Hahn states you come back to your body over and over again, saying "Hello body, I will take care of you....You're body is a wonder." And like that your heart wings grow.
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