[January 2023] “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” – Nelson Mandela

Let me be clear: the gravity I must defy is my own. 

Here I am, at two-and-a-half or three years old, just discovering the wondrousness of words, how they zip out from my mouth to light up the world like fireflies. My parents take me to nearby Stanley Park. The fountain is in the middle of the rose garden; everything smells sweet and slightly astringent, with a small splash of algae. My parents hand me a new copper penny, tell me to throw it in the pool and wish. I pause, lean my growing body against the circle of round stones cemented together, look the cascading water up and down, toss the coin. A few moments later, I turn with hands on tiny hips, one part matter-of-fact and one part sassy-AF. I declare, “Well, that didn’t work!” I wished I could fly. I am disappointed but not surprised to find I am still earthbound. Life has already thrown enough curve balls in my direction that I will take this one head-on. Not only will I face it, I won’t let it stop me. Cute as a button, and quite precocious. 

One day when I am seven, my mother looks out the window above the dishes she is scrubbing just in time to see me walk upright across the top of the swing set in our yard. The surface I tread is two pieces of wood, 2x8s nailed together by my construction-worker uncle. I feel it makes a perfect balance beam and have scaled side poles to the peak. My little limbs are spread wide, fingers touch the sky. Shortly after, my aunt cuts a cartoon from a magazine, an image of a kid on a swing that is literally upside down with the caption: Higher! My parents put it on the fridge where it stays for years. 

When I am eight and nine, pushing a decade, I ride my bike down a neighborhood hill into the cul-de-sac. Once reaching the bottom, I bank on momentum, take my feet from pedals, stand on the seat. I want to let go of the handlebars, but don’t. I have a fine-tuned sense of how to push just far enough into danger, just far enough and not too much. I curl my back over, guide the wheels around and around. Back home, I push the trampoline up to an edge of the tiny above-ground pool and front flip into the water. 

When I am twelve, a friend invites me to her acro class. I learn side aerials, back tucks, hand springs. My body turns lithe which doesn’t seem quite safe; I want more strength, more tough. At fourteen, I join my school’s track team to stay in shape for soccer. I discover polevault when my coach asks for volunteers; since none of the other teams in the league compete in the event, it will be easy points. Unconcerned with winning but excited by the idea of soaring, my hand is in the air before I even think about it.

My own momentum catapulting me forward is irresistible. I move from pliés and relevés to opalescent fiberglass poles and chalk on my palms. At seventeen, I like that “I’m a pole-vaulter” has much more edge than “I’m a dancer.” Its consonants are surer, harder. I lean into the rhythms: seven left steps to go, six, five, four, three, two, one, jump, bend right knee to lead, arc back, left arm push as pole plants in metal box with a thud, sail through the inversion all acceleration and exhilaration, hips up, up, toes over the bar, turn, bend at the waist, let the pole go, and fly. I say fly, but it isn’t quite that. It’s an algorithm of muscle and bone partnering with the physics of our planet, creating the ability – for just a few miraculous moments – to fool gravity, to render me a bird. I qualify for states. Then for a national meet. 

When in my twenties I experience sudden onset of fatigue, pain, vertigo. Then, certainly, I am earthbound, succumb to the gravity I’ve been fighting. My training is stopped short. The halt challenges everything I know about myself, every sport-related coping mechanism I have built up to block out the trauma I’ve been through. Yet it is also an opportunity to slow down, do things differently. It’s a chance to take refuge outside the physical. To remember how books sustained me through childhood, how prayer — which as far as I can tell has something to do with breath, something to do with trees — can keep me afloat. Slowly, I recover from the worst symptoms, though my body is changed. 

When in my thirties, I’ve assembled a new semblance of balance though am clearly no longer an athlete. One day, a housemate says, “You move like a dancer.” As if ambushed by a crouched creature coming at me from around a corner, that phrase gives me pause. I remember. I re-member, reclaim the supple acrobat in my body, in my mind. I write poetry daily, each line a length of thread, each stanza a map back towards my quiet beating heart. It whispers: softness is a muscle. 

That was years ago. 

Now, I look at the world around me and am amazed that any of us take flight, that any of us stay open. The oceans are filled with islands of plastics. Many fresh water sources are poisoned with chemicals, pharmaceuticals, other toxins. Black and brown bodies are disproportionately targeted by state-sanctioned violence. Disabled people. Trans* folx, femmes, and women, too. The colonial project of this nation-state, alongside many others, clings stubbornly to its aims. The disparities in access to resources are stark: many are without housing, food, basic healthcare. 

But still we sing. We dance. We love. We dream. We create. We wake up each day, beauty-life itself the celebration. 

These days as I rise, when I dream of flying, I dream all of us, together, liberating each other and ourselves. I must push through my own gravity to believe in the better world we are crafting. I must move beyond my own edges, reclaim immense tenderness. The sweetness we make when we come together in community. Every penny into every well is a wish for this vision. I know it doesn’t take just wishes, it takes work. My work here is the work of stories. Stories that unite us. Stories that deepen understanding. Stories that don’t turn away from the carnage yet manage to carry seeds of hope. And to drop these seeds into the just-right breeze that they may find ground from which to sprout. Blossom us home. Blossom us free. 

Which is to say: these days my soaring will happen right here. 

Bright syllables, wings of firefly words. 

I invite you to join me.