'Full of such sensual detail that to read it is to breathe it in.'
- Jo Shapcott [review, Greyhound Night Service]

Throwing myself into the fire

Days have passed. Days have been building up to more endless days as we head towards summer. Nights are light later and this week when I finished work at 9:15pm the sky was still pink.

I feel the possibility of summer building up in me like a scream, like a sigh of relief, like a dance waiting to begin. All of these things in one. And yet this tension feels heavenly and impossible all at once. It reminds me of what it was to be a kid and look forward to something for a long long time and then the night before it happens being so exhausted and excited all at once from the waiting and anticipation and...I don't know how to have this feeling as an adult maybe. Except I do know cause I'm having it now.

I did something this week which meant taking a huge risk. This risk has already taken me to a new place, regardless of the outcome. I've always loved the phrase--Leap and the net will appear. But this has meant I've spent my life so far either leaping and leaping and leaping and falling down and skinning my knees or doing the opposite, telling myself not to leap, to be more cautious, don't be silly...

But back are the silly days of springtime, and to quote The Lusty Month of May again-- "That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray"--this time of year is upon me, at full force. I feel a bit raw, a bit as if I've thrown myself to the fire of spring and blossoming. And yet I cannot see how it can be otherwise and to still call this living. When everything is dull with no surprises the fire may simmer on low heat, and sometimes when it whoooshes beneath the light of this warming weather, and picks up intensity, I want to abandon myself to the blaze and run towards it saying yes yes yes yes

I am learning that the important thing for me is often to open my arms and move towards something instead of staying 100% safe, looking down at the net from the tall tall tightrope wire and saying, uhuh, no way, not me, I can't take this step, what if there's no net?

I say, let me try it. Let me try my hand at life once more. Let me try and fail rather than play it so safe nothing could happen. I know I'd regret that later.

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