sinking and soaring
long form poetry I wrote on the shore of Lake Washington a few summers back
somedays my heart soars, and other days, it sinks. somedays I do not want to know what it is like to have little to be scared to be unsure to be in pain but other days, I do. somedays I do not want to be strong or inspirational, or ‘mature for my age,’ or ‘wise beyond my years,’ but other days, I do. somedays I do not want to own up to all of the dark days I have known at the age that I am but most days, I do. somedays I detest the ways familiar places make me feel so strange and alone but in recent days I am beginning to suspect that I do not have to bear it all on my own. somedays I do not believe that Jesus, Man of Sorrows Himself, actually feels and knows my pain, or sees my angst, but other days I do. somedays I worry about my participation in broken systems that bear the name of Jesus, but most days, I am reminded that I am a broken system, and Jesus chose to participate with me. somedays I recall the tire swing in front of the house I grew up in, fashioned out of all the things that make up a childhood memory: a fraying rope — bound to snap, swaying to the tune of some distant melody made up of creaking tree branches and the sound of my father’s tires coming up the dirt road. should I ever hear it again, I’d surely remember it, but wherever would that be? those days have long since departed but the sinking and the soaring remains with me. there are days I wish my life looked drastically different. and on other days, I cannot believe I get this small echo of an existence to call my own. somedays I do not suppose that the Kingdom has really drawn near but other days it is all I can taste on my tongue, the sole melody resounding in my ears, and the clearest, surest thing my eyes perceive. somedays I am filled with wonder and other days I wonder why last week it was laughter that occupied my lungs; and today I’m too anxious to even cry. you see — somedays my heart soars, and other days, it sinks.
and on these days: some-days and most-days and other-days and just one-of-those-days — I want to break bread on the mornings I feel sad and scared, and slather it in maple butter all the same. I want to walk around a neighborhood that isn’t mine during the last hour of sunlight drinking wine out of a water tumbler that still hints of old coffee. I want to sit around a living room while my friends play guitar very badly and ensure they are well-listened to as they grieve. I want to answer their calls at the worst times, meet them at the corner for coffee, drive hours to celebrate their engagements, and send them off well, to sense the wonder and wistfulness that accompanies the changing of the seasons. I want to see the sun glint off the water in the summer months; pull a well-loved sweater around my shoulders during the gray ones. I want a life that is lived-in, to be a safe place of a person, to commune and to come undone, to build something that can harbor many. I want to sing alone in my car on my way to get groceries, the strength to admit when I am weary, at the end of my wit. I want wide expansive space to deeply miss what used to be mine whilst being at peace with what I now have. I want to be heartbroken and brought very very low, and still hold out for hope anyways. I want to sink into my seat as the overture begins to play and believe wholeheartedly that in the end all will still be made beautiful again — even after all the flipping of scripts and the pain points in the plot, after all is lost and then found, then seemingly lost forever again. I want to believe that kites will soar in the same winds that tossed us apart from one another forever — the same wind that took down the ponderosa pine in our front yard that spring day where the tire swing sways where we left and never returned where someone else that wasn’t all of us will live out their happier days. (my heart once sank knowing that) but now it just holds steady. (and I used to worry that grief would always remain in the distance) but now I just stand ready. hallelujah my happier days were and are and will be elsewhere.
so let me spend them somewhere other than where I thought they’d transpire with humans who knew me better. let them be spent on the far side of the Pacific, where the dawn spreads her wings, where grief runs deep and grace befriends the lowly. let the hydrangea bush outside my window sink low with the weight of blooming, let the ashes of august soar away in the September wind. let me now make sense of all the sad songs that once played on my fathers radio — let them play all the way through let hope be a staple, a household name — worn-in and worn-out, never worn down or used up. let me be wrong in conversation let me love and be loved let me lend my forgiveness, receive it in full let me limp towards my King carrying all my broken, crumbling pieces towards the Day, (and everyday after that) when He names me whole. but until then let me begin to understand that all of this soaring and sinking — perhaps there is space for it. I’ve spent so many days, sinking and soaring, always trying to make sense of it — I cannot help it, and perhaps I will be for quite a long, important while.
(and what I mean by these last 994 words is — I’m really just waiting, impatiently, for it to turn out okay, in the end, after all)
Can’t wait to break bread with slathered maple butter with you 🫶🏻