As the new days rise

Sometimes it comes down to one moment. The one thing that can tip your perception of something dramatically. The thing that makes everything feel OK.

Our vacation hadn't been going well, honestly. We had many great moments, but up until the last night/day, the bumps were basically outweighing the good. And then I woke up early one morning on the last day, having slept not at all in a tent on the beach on Padre Island. The sun wasn't up yet. And then, after a long walk with my oldest daughter, it was.

And suddenly nothing was bad. How could it be.

"But there is a truth and it's on our side/Dawn is coming, open your eyes/Look into the sun as the new days rise."

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Top of the rock

At the top of the rock I felt something shift, a change in some heart of me--because everyone has many hearts, surely--brave and kind and sad and scared and lovely and stubborn and joyful--and in some heart of me my breath whooshed out and everything felt still. A sort of swelling quiet.

The rock itself is pink granite, all of it, pink and black and shiny and covered with more life than you'd imagine. That rock was sustaining lovely swaths of succulents and wildflowers. The very top of the rock, right where we were standing, was dotted with vernal pools. And in some of those pools lived tiny frogs and tadpoles. The girls caught polliwogs in those vernal pools, right on top of a rock which just happens to be called Enchanted Rock. Searching for polliwogs in vernal pools at the top of Enchanted Rock should be a life list item. It's such a lovely sentence to type, much less experience.

While the girls searched for polliwogs and my husband plotted our next vista, I stood staring into the distance, turning ever-so-slightly now and then for a different view. There, straight in front of me, things were gray and heavy. Behind me, clear and vast. And I felt--I felt, I felt--that I understood what brings people to church every Sunday.

Here is the truth I labored over, both literally and figuratively, while my children scaled it instinctively: These views don't come without a climb. 

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Up and back down

Lost in the waves for a minute you charged forward. There was a determined set to your chin, a gleam in your eye. There was the challenge in your squared shoulders. The wave swelled at you, gathering up its enormous power as if it knew it would take a lot to knock you down. You took a deep breath. The wave and you met, tangled briefly. I watched--you rose up impossibly high, thrusting your whole body upward, face tilted to the sun. For a moment you were the victor. Then the wave swallowed you up and went crashing past you and you were left sputtering, wiping your eyes furiously. "You okay?" I asked and I don't even think you heard. You smiled wickedly at me and the next wave, and it hit, and you went up, up, again.

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Jump

I have been trying to jump off of things more. I realized, while watching my daughters fling themselves from high perches and tumble off of furniture, that I don't jump. It's mostly because I've injured my right ankle so many times that I am instinctively wary of overdoing it on that side. But suddenly I wasn't sure if that wariness was for good reason or not. And so I've been jumping. Off of things, up and down, all around. Dance parties are definitely cause for jumping. And sometimes I jump a little, for no reason at all, as a round the corner to my office.

And that jumping has led to other things I don't normally do, like climbing. Madeleine was struggling to scale up a climbing wall at the playground. "Just go up," we told her. "Not straight across." And as I watched her try and try again, muscles trembling, I thought: Why not show her?

"I'll do it," I announced, and the look of surprise on her face was enough to get me on top of that first step on the wall. And suddenly I realized, muscles trembling much harder than hers had been, that I was not going to be able to get up that wall. But I tried.

I jumped down.

I tried again.

I never even made it past the second notch on the wall. Just an all around stunning failure to ascend. Madeleine seemed disappointed, maybe. But I did try. I hope that's all that matters, in the end. My spectacular failures fading to the background as she remembers looking up at me. Me, stepping out of my comfort zone. And finally going for it.

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