Up In the Air

" Everything was rewritten when he was up in the air. 
New things were possible with the human form.
 It went beyond equilibrium.
He felt for a moment uncreated. Another kind of awake."

~ Colum McCann

Let the Great World Spin

The garbage disposal is broken. So is the dishwasher. But I can still get the dishes done. By hand, making sure food doesn't clog the drain. My car needs a new battery too. Twice in the past month I have had to jump start it. But I have learned not to run the air conditioner when I'm parked, and to turn off the radio when I'm waiting to pick up my daughter from high school. And so the car keeps running. 

I'm a little broken too at the moment, but I am still functional. I am in the middle of huge transitions, and I have to be careful not to expect too much of myself right now. It's been hard to write the last few weeks. There's so much to say, but it's too soon to say it. That's the downside of writing and sharing personal essays. Sometimes the things you need to write about are too raw, too close. There has not been enough time to reflect, not enough distance to take the long view. But it is possible to stop for a minute and just see what's there. Right now.

It's a time of change. And I feel like I'm walking a tightrope, putting one foot in front of the other, not looking too far ahead, trying to make each step purposeful. One of the most incredible things I see right now are all the people standing by me, ready to catch me when I slip (and I have slipped!). Every Sunday before the offering in my Unitarian church, we recite an affirmation of gratitude and giving. The last line has been playing over and over in my head like a mantra: "Let us be grateful, even for our needs, so that we may learn from the generosity of others." In every corner of my life I am being met with love and generosity. It takes my breath away.

Another thing I see is that glass, you know, the one with the water that just reaches the halfway mark? It's half full. Even on the scariest, saddest of days I can see that it is half full. This is huge for me, a glass half empty kinda gal for so much of my life. That I am able to find what writer John O'Donohue describes as "a diamond-thought of light" on dark days is an incredible gift. It reminds me that I have all I need to navigate this strange time.

And finally, there's the tightrope walk itself. Some days I can't feel the ground beneath me, and much of the familiar landscape is fading away. What lies ahead, when I dare to take my eyes off the wire for a minute, is possibility. In times of transition, it is tempting to reach for the nearest guidepost and cling to it. But as my friend Ken reminded me the other day, transition is a time of great opportunity if you can sit with the uncertainty for awhile. It's a time to explore and reinvent. When everything is up in the air, there can be incredible moments of feeling "uncreated." What will I create now? 

I'm feeling a little broken, but I'm remembering what Colum McCann writes at the end of his beautiful novel, Let the Great World Spin: "The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough." It IS enough.