Blog Post #9: The Work

Here we are “Spring” bellowing down on your concrete and steel body. Do you sunbathe, Birmingham? I wish you could know what some things are like. 

Yesterday I went to Highland Park with the boys. I pushed Rocco on the swings and watched his deep brown eyes glisten in the sun as his three year old face twisted in delight. His cheeks were plush against the wind. We switched between “Weee!” “Boo!” and “Don’t let go!” He must have felt like he was flying, must have felt like Spiderman when he let go for that one second before I caught him and told him, “No, we don’t want you to fall out,” and tickled the top of his belly. His outrageous, breathy giggle against the push of the wind panted as if to say, “This feels like work.” A kid’s workday at the park.

His dad and uncle came up to the park after moving the couch. Well at least I got to steal the little one for an hour. I stood as the park stilled. Dan flew past me to chase Rocco, pick him up, and anxiously fly him through the air as if it’s been a lifetime. I didn’t even see him coming until he was past me. It took a while for me to notice Dave standing next to me. I couldn’t stop thinking, how could I love this little thing that is in no way mine? I’m not even sure what my place is here. Something new. 

Have you ever felt that way, Birmingham? That mysterious hunger, that vibrant chill on your skin fighting against the warmth of the first “Spring” sun on your spine and in your breath? 

This is what it’s like: You don’t know what it is that tells you to dig your feet in the warm dirt and close your eyes to the warm wind, the distant sun, the world that tells you to work and not enjoy. Something tells you to remember.

Have you dreamed of this day, when something so innately unpossessed, or so impossibly not yours, could in some way become your own? 

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You’re blossoming today. The sun is almost hiding those scars you have, those pieces of skin that peel dark gray. Do you feel the splashes of the river? Does it cleanse you or make you shudder? 

What if one day you were dismantled and fell slowly into that body of water? Would you cup over the top of it, spill it into our city? How would you handle such displacement, such stress? 

Who would pick you up? 

Maybe you, too, would retreat into a reality that you’ve learned to always make a fantasy, always learn to be unsettled. Learn to be ready to go. Now there are no attachments, a single body in the world, a single body in the water. Get up and fly. It’s “Spring.” This is when we learn to be new.