It’s warm for Salt Lake in late December- But still cold enough for snow, snow made light and fat by a sweep over the great lake, its flakes like down from a split pillow. We’re walking on the north, above our city, hand in hand, the skyline visible through the bare trees. The path runs between dense sun kissed snow walls, invading the rocky ground around the normally high traffic path. Our girls nipping at one another in great examples of what its truly meant to be alive.
Before our hike, I was thinking how hard this last couple of months have been. An act of love gone wrong. Jobless and insecure, thinning my own voice. Once loud and confident, turned uncertain and beat down. Goodbyes flit from each others hearts as car bombs in Bagdad and Kufa end six dozen unnamed lives. As others prosper, children go hungry. And to punctuate the cliche’, I wallow in self-pity as another lives life with no legs.
But when the snow falls, I stop thinking about illness and accidents and war, and I stand with you to watch the slow drift. Years from now, we’ll forget that I tried to take my life, that an intense love choked at our thoughts. I’ll remind you then, faced doped with an addiction to laughter, that once there was a trail where we were walking, fingers intertwined, air hushed with sun light. And we let go of our meanness. Mindful to not displace the past, but to move on and smile at one another… I was smiling for you who never wanted to leave. I was only grateful to be there, you holding me again.
Flying dreams do not exist by daylight, but who will stop me from believing in them? I search in the air for others who have actualized their dreams. In my soul, I can see anything I wish. In it’s untidy crevices, I seek the gauze of me, who will lead me, who will save me from this place. No one soars, but noone falls either, which is sad. I have no fear of falling, alone through all this. Though what seem only dark possibilities, I propel myself when my choices narrow and I forage for light. I will not be lied to, even by myself.
