Five-Minute Friday: Home

I fly above or below the radar through so many days.

My husband and I drive to our weekly community group and the air is heavy between us, sadness filling the space with things I don't know how to carry all at once.  I look away, out the window, and my tears leak out of ducts that just won't shut when I want them to.  I long to be a bird and fly away, away from life.  But instead we pull up to the house, climb the steps, and I pause to breathe deep, walk through the front door with a smile.  Fake it til' you make it, that's how it is sometimes.  I don't have the energy to land, to be known, not tonight.  

And truth be told, there is no place to land, sometimes, in all this hovering and ducking and strain of wings in flight.  No space that opens wide the door to timid knocking, to step through and embrace the one with shoulders slumped on the front porch.  

And sometimes, it's a brief and beautiful landing.  

photo credit

It's the gentle tapping of a friend on the shoulder at church; the one who saw, across the room, that I was not myself.  The one who bridged the gap between us, opened the door and pulled me in with arms and soft prayers.

It's my husband, rising from his desk this week and pulling me to the bedroom to wrap me tight, whispering that this is more important than work, while I soak his chest and there is no air between us. 

It's the space in the shower when I can't hold it in any longer, and I'm alone, but the cold tile walls are the chest of God.  

It's the space where I uncover my soul in written word, and I am not ashamed to tell the story that is unraveling imperfection, the "gritty, messy stories of the still-lost." 

These are but shadows of home and I continue to hover and land, hover and land.  I carry home with me and it carries my wings in its draft, and I know, too, it waits for me ahead. 

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[This post took much longer than five minutes to come out, but I still wanted to post it with FMF.  Some weeks are like that, and I just go with it.  And if you want to listen to some music that moves the soul while you read, be my guest.]