[gallery link="file" columns="5"] What of home draws us in but the hope of being, the want of becoming? Like a steadied dock secure at the edge of waves tossing with random relent whether coming or going or sinking strength abandoned, home is escape from and into all at once. Home is hope. Chance to burn clean and chase the lingering, the demons that don’t give way to another day and bones kept together in shadows present hugging the papering walls of a heart deconditioned to the Hand holding. They don’t quit. Don’t quiet. You just get older. Home is safe ...or it was ...meaning it is. Home, no matter how disturbed or how sound, always waits for return. Homecoming.
On this road I learned to run. Really run, not carefree and roaming, but with direction and time. “Go!” Lean into the wind still warm though Fall my breath uneasy and shallow, lines blurring. Legs on fire as my chest caves and expands in rhythms unnatural. I cross the line determined as end. Breath shallow still gasping for something deeper and filling. I walk back to the beginning lose myself in dreams of being faster than I ever really was.
“How was that?” “Good, man. Line up. Let’s do it again. This time faster.”
It was here on this road adorned with the name, Colby, a warmth in life cooled to thinning memories that I bled. Where my dad effectively managed time and molded resolve stubborn in my bones still. The paved black road pushing hard against my feet only skimming and surfacing determined to move with greater speed each time. It is the fifth or sixth sprint interval. I’m becoming more of a machine driven by ticking time and endings running to produce earning time as fast as I can. Typically, I ran to complete ten. Right in the middle I was best, my fastest. I loosened enough to move faster and then I weaned. At ten, I was done completely in the sense of done. Tired of running and tired of proving. Done.
If I’m honest and see through, slightly opaque, that street, this one that caught and held my sweat and fears taught me. I learned how to earn on that street. I’ve been an earner pretty much ever since.
Acceptance. Time. Success. Progress. Love...
All earned by my attempts at being better. Where is a heavy hand holding a destructive tool when you need it? Some things must break to transfigure whole.
I am not patient. Not for a lack of ease or an aggressive temperament, but a preoccupation with earning my keep and keeping what’s earned. Proving, pushing, giving up when my empty attempts stack higher than my expectation. Then I wean. And I’m done. Like barely standing straight after ten breathing busy and losing count.
'Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.'
Life is easy and so is home really. We struggle and kick, moan and wince at days and events bigger and testier than the rest. We judge life as harder but we are just holding and keeping. Earning. Leaving home and that street has been a slow unraveling to grace and ease. 'Come to me...' when all I want is to recoil and fold ...when the hands of the watch stop with a click and I’m still running to the end. That’s when. Stop counting and straining and tangling with time and earning. Rest and be well in the hope saving opening the door home to be human and honest again and to become an acceptor rather than an ever struggling earner.