An Upward Trajectory
Today I stood and watched a puff of smoke far in the distance - a vertical line. At first it looked like a plane crash, the way it seemed to plummet to the earth. As I stood, taking note of life going on as usual amidst the possible crisis, the line grew and rose upward. It was a plane taking flight, shooting straight up to the sky. It seemed profound in some way, like one of those moments you promise yourself to remember always. I wondered what it means for something to be profound. Do I really remember any moment that will stay with me forever, something good? A memory comes to me. I was small and crying. My sister came to me and wiped a tear from my cheek, and as she let it fall from her fingertip she said, “Now it has fallen from me.”
I still mourn for the time when I thought everything in the world was so right, when childhood seemed to stretch on forever and nothing bad could touch us. The little girl whose life was upended so brutally has grown into a woman who is not always right, who is not always strong - who does not always know where to turn. But, sometimes, she is right and strong and sure. That is a good enough place to be. It is profound to know that what looks like an ending is almost always a beginning.
As the plane rose, an upward arc appeared across the whole sky in its wake. Something far away can move fast but appear to be so slow. What seems to be wreckage could turn out to be the first step of a long journey. If you wait it out, you may see that the line is moving upwards.
I still mourn for the time when I thought everything in the world was so right, when childhood seemed to stretch on forever and nothing bad could touch us. The little girl whose life was upended so brutally has grown into a woman who is not always right, who is not always strong - who does not always know where to turn. But, sometimes, she is right and strong and sure. That is a good enough place to be. It is profound to know that what looks like an ending is almost always a beginning.
As the plane rose, an upward arc appeared across the whole sky in its wake. Something far away can move fast but appear to be so slow. What seems to be wreckage could turn out to be the first step of a long journey. If you wait it out, you may see that the line is moving upwards.
