Holy

A few weeks ago, I watched my son fly down a hill on his scooter, one leg hovering, smiling wide from a really deep place.  That can’t-contain-this-joy sort of smile. Watching him, I remembered so clearly in my body and heart the feeling of riding down this one particular hill on my bike in the neighborhood I grew up in. I’d just go up and down all afternoon until dark. This was when helmets were optional and I remember my long braid coming looser and looser.  Sometimes I’d fall off my bike.  At least once I came really close to being hit by a car (sorry, Ma). I wasn’t going anywhere, just enjoying that feeling of leaning into gravity, going in the opposite direction of the wind.  The balance of control and release, of being in the body and outside of it, of being an object in motion while also being myself an object acting on others.

I mentioned in my last post that it’s National Poetry Month, generally it means writing 30 poems in the 30 days of April. In the past I’ve done them on a theme–there was one year where I wrote a poem about my father every single day. That shit was hard, but like most things, incredibly necessary. This year, I am trying to record what is holy in each day–my daily experiences that are a variation of the feeling I describe above, which is both ordinary and supremely holy.  Below is a poem that I think speaks to a tender sort of holiness–in two places, the bulbs opening, her lover being alive and sleeping in the light.  Record what’s holy in your life.

edited to add: tomorrow night will be a pretty holy experience.  come hang out.