Soaring, Tumbling

(Photo snagged from the Blue Nowhere in a random search)

I remember playing on the teeter-totters when I was a kid. When I had a good partner, one who wasn't too heavy or too light, one who knew how to balance with me, it was brilliant - up, up, up I'd go, rushing to meet the sky, and then down, down, down I'd sink, to thunk into the earth if I didn't catch myself first.

It was fun, too, to try and send someone flying by dropping my weight suddenly on the seat...and then stand or hop off and let them drop suddenly to the ground. We took turns, of course, being the one to fly.

No one told us we were learning lessons about levers, about moving disparate weights with minimum effort, about shifting the world...

We were children and knew nothing of how life, mood, emotion, could be like our playground toy, shooting up and hurtling down with sometimes frightening velocity.

If we closed our eyes, sometimes we became lost in the experience, set adrift in the spinning sensation that came milliseconds before the jolt when we'd crested or bottomed out.

Some days...some days I feel myself soaring ever higher. Head thrown back, laughing, I float upward and taste joy, taste blue sky, revel in that weightlessness, the elation of the rise.

Some days...some days I wonder if I reached the pinnacle and am now tumbling in a free-fall, down to the earth. I wonder, if I am falling, can I catch myself? Will my legs bear up under the impact of my landing? Or will I crumble this time, land on my ass with a bone-jarring thud?

Most days...most days I hope for content in my life. I know I'm in a state of transition, shifting from up to down, down to up, in constant motion, and I'm OK with that. Up a little, down a little, hovering around the balance point sounds just fine to me...

Of the three, I like balance the best. Oh, great joy is something to treasure, and sorrow is something to be borne, but balance...balance is what I desire, because the highs don't equal the lows, and the lows go ever deeper, and hovering near the middle sounds just fine to me.