Just Write {51}

My feet are probably making a thwap thwap thwap sound, but I can’t hear it because my ear buds are full of Mumford and Sons. I will wait, I will wait, I will wait…

and it’s hard not to sing out loud at the top of my lungs. I still throw my arms out sometimes, to the beat. Like I’m a drummer. A thirty-seven year old mother and wife from Minnesota, on a run on a tar path, air drumming. Sometimes I jump up to touch a leaf on a low branch, for that little zing of energy that trees give away for free.

My head is full of anticipation and some angst, but I will wait, I will wait, I will wait. I’m tired of pushing My Way up a hill like I can control a boulder. I want to be pulled by a way that isn’t mine but is the best mine I could possibly have. Jumping for leaves and thinking that thought makes me feel like I could fly. But I thwap thwap thwap my way across a quiet street and on to a path into an even quieter cemetery. I slow to walk and I read names on headstones.

There’s a man there, in the early morning light, alone. He’s standing next to a big open space in the ground, dirt piled up and off to the side. I walk past him and lift my hand just a little, to honor his story without bothering him too much. I wonder who is gone from his life, that would bring him here before the casket and all the other mourners. I’m sorry.

{photo from the following day}

These days of dust
Which we’ve known
Will blow away with this new sun

And I’ll kneel down
Wait for now
And I’ll kneel down
Know my ground

The light coming up to the day, the sun, it’s trusted. The rest we don’t know. And I’m walking and air drumming and free. The weather is turning in the way that makes mornings a little more crisp but still warm. I can jump up to touch leaves and think of the start of school, start to worry for my anxious boy, start to push that boulder, rolling in all the many hard things filled with fear. The regret, the sorrow, the ways I’ve been betrayed and the ways I’ve betrayed. But I have to say no, but maybe not out loud. No no no, just jog/walk and look at the day, this one.

So I’ll be bold
As well as strong
And use my head alongside my heart
So take my flesh
And fix my eyes
That tethered mind free from the lies

But I’ll kneel down
Wait for now
I’ll kneel down
Know my ground

Raise my hands
Paint my spirit gold
And bow my head
Keep my heart slow

This is the 51st installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page, and please don’t link to posts that are not written in the spirit of capturing moments–like lists or sponsored posts. Then please link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in. (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word?

:::::