simply hanging on



Tiffany Dome at the Chicago Cultural Center


This poem hit me today.


the climbing gym


The mats below the wall are three inches thick, at least.


I could fall if I had to and nothing would break. Still, I dig fingertips


into the handholds, trying to fight gravity. I'm at my freest


letting go, but surrender is never casual. My heart flops and slips


each time, bruised and shaken. Even here, with such ample cushioning below,


I resist the drop. And it takes everything as each tendon and muscle strains,


the skin of my hands rubbing raw, the ascension slow


and shaky, my toes at the slimmest ledges, and blood hammering my veins.


This is what is being asked: move up or come down.


There’s no reward for simply hanging on.

It’s written by Maya Stein, a woman I met in Mondo Beyondo. Maya writes a 10-lined poem every Tuesday, and this is the one I received today. The last line just kills me. “There’s no reward for simply hanging on.”

That is what I feel like I’ve been doing since my father died; hanging on. I’ve not moved forward. I’ve felt paralyzed.

There is so much I want to do. Currently, I’m taking Susannah Conway’s Unravelling course, and today in one of my writing assignments, I wrote down what I wanted to be:

dancer/photographer/interpreter(sign language)/Francophile

Well, guess what else I discovered? All four of these require a lifetime of learning and devotion. Which leads me back to Maya’s poem: “…move up or come down. There’s no reward for simply hanging on.”

I’ve just been hanging on. I’ve been imprisoned by the grief; felt safer in my home than going after the things I desire.

Last week, I had dinner at Girl and The Goat (trip #3!) with Laura (another friend from Mondo Beyondo), and she made 2010 her best year ever, and I’m pretty sure every year after will just get better and better. She has a fantastic plan for 2012, and I want to do it too. But that means I’ll have to leave my safe home, and go out into the world.

I’ve been excited about 2011; I wake up every morning looking forward to making some things happen. But inevitably, I don’t accomplish much. It’s like there is so much to do, I don’t know where to start. It’s kind of like the same feeling I get with decluttering my home or office, there’s just so much to do, that I don’t know where to begin.

All four of the things I want to become require a lot of work, but they are things I enjoy doing. I just need a plan and a schedule (and to follow that sucker). They require me to ‘move up or come down’. Because there is no doubt “there’s no reward for simply hanging on.”