Us.

I love this photo.  When I saw it, I paused for more than a beat and stared. It grabbed me somewhere in my right brain and tugged hard on my emotions, sucking me in to the heart of the inspirational message.  It speaks to me of yearning, unity, grace, and strength. The reaching, the collaboration, the leap, the catch – it all just tells a story – perhaps ours, in these turbulent times.

It feels as if I’ve been pondering this entire year – my mind stuck in an idle state of overload, unable to concentrate on what to write – on how to come up with adequate words to describe the state of “us”, this world of ours. It seems frivolous to write about anything other than this story of where we are.  It seems selfish to write about my own loss when there are so many with stories of their own.

And the words seem naked, stripped of their usual flare.

For me, it’s been a challenge to find the ease to write verse that normally flows so naturally.

For me, words fail to describe that a vulnerable world has tipped on its axis and feels perched on the tip of a precipice, ready to tumble head first into the unknown – and the unfriendly.

For me, the words I see others write hurts my soul and my ethical compass tells me to “shut up”, stay silent, and keep my fingers laying clutched together in my lap, instead of pounding away, saying things I may regret – that truly aren’t me. Staining my own soul.

For me, words, like arrows filled with disappointment and fear, have penetrated deep into skin, already too thin and bruised with the uncertainty of “us”.

Our eyes have branded these words into minds that won’t forget, so filled with the noise of this uncertainty that we can’t find our way to the truth. Or understanding. Or peace.

So, after so many months of quiet, inwardly (and often cowardly) thinking, I’m trying my best to make friends with words again – striving to make peace with a world that’s “masked” in otherworldly clothes that none of us recognize.  I’m trying desperately to find our way back to “us” – a reminder that we are better than this. Together.

A year of pandemicity.  A year of loss, of disappointment, of isolation.

A year of searching.

A year of heartbreak, heartache, and heartfelt reactions. And, yes, heartless ones too.

We must do better.

Take a good look at this photo.  Imagine what it took to capture just this single moment of beauty – this collaboration of artists seeking difficult and unimaginable perfection.

The work. The falls. The patience. The passion. The fortitude.

Let us become like them – the artists of humanity.

Helping. Rising.  Encouraging.  Lifting.

Faith.

Let “us” become everything we need from each other, a soft, but strong place to land.

A beautiful destination.