Sometimes, The Detour Off the Path is the Path Itself

FREEDOM AND ATTACHMENT

Freedom and attachment spread me North and South

Into a Michaelangelo pose

The pull of the hand held, the spooned mornings

Draws seductively away

From the calm and the certainty of quiet nights alone.

The places in my heart that need

The holes in my soul that want

The corners of my life that clutch

Cry out to have you here.

While the voices of my past drone on

Holding fast to peace, hard-won

Independence that I want so much

Awareness that I hold so dear.

I love the roller-coaster ride of love

It dips and spins and tells me I’m alive

But it stops with a bump, leaves me breathless

With exhilarated memories and shaky, stunned legs.

So here I sit, laid bare

Soft silk ribbons pulling wrists to you

Ankles scarred with rope burns

Pulling downward to be grounded.

And I know I’ll buy the ticket, and I know that ropes can stretch

And that ribbons can be flimsy and can break with just a touch.

Freedom may be uncomplicated

But it bears a bitter truth:

I’m here to ride the ride

To stretch, to pull, to find the balance

Between freedom and attachment

And, with ribbons, flying, dance.

6/4/96

~~~~~

When I met my husband I was in the middle of a journey that I believed I needed to take alone.  As with so many things in life, he was an unplanned event. We don’t always know what’s best for us, however.  Sometimes the detour off the path is the path itself.

Fifteen years later, I look at a man who loves me unconditionally still. He sees me in a way that I often wish I could see myself. His confidence in me is infectious. And when my speech gets a bit forceful, as it often does when I feel strongly about something, he says, smiling, with clear affection in his eyes, “I’m not scared of you…”

And although I could have taken the journey alone, I’m so grateful he’s by my side. As I wrote fifteen years ago, “I’m here to ride the ride.” He still sits next to me, sometimes with arms overhead, laughing, sometimes afraid, sometimes just peacefully looking at the view before the next drop. He's warm in the seat next to me, and, I say this with the sure knowledge that it labels me a bonafide sap…we still hold hands.

~~~~~