The Door is Here: Will you Step Through?

On most nights, just after dinner, Freddi and I head out on our bikes for a ride. The neighborhood streets around our house are quiet, and we can roll down the road, side by side, chatting about the day, feeling the evening breeze.  It's easy and sweet, one of those normal, nothing special, daily delights that adds to our reservoir of joy without us thinking much about it.  
 
And then, this past week, Freddi mastered riding without hands, and this daily delight became a whole lot more.
 
Mama!  he called out. You have to try it!
 
I'm a pretty game Mom, but some things are just a hard no.  Climbing over a chain link fence in shorts and bare feet, for instance.  Stepping into the swamp in search of a toad and sinking up to my waist.  No thanks.  But riding a bike without hands?  I'm in!  I'm SO in!  I mean, I WANT to be in...only... I've never been able to do it. Despite the world of other athletic experience I have tucked under my belt, I've never been able to ride without hands.  I studied trapeze and circus arts.  I've water skied over jumps and barefooted behind ski boats. But ride without hands? Hasn't happened.  It's always that first stomach-dipping swerve, that quick flinch of the handlebars, that tense turn of the front tire, and I instantly grab the bike, gripping on for dear life.  
 
But this week, I felt a resolve I've not felt for a long time.  As I watched Freddi pedal with ease, arms dangling at his sides, I remembered our recent promise to each other that we would try something each day that scared us.  I remembered, too, my desire to let my spirit breathe more freely, with and beyond the discomfort of fear or possible failure.  I remembered the kid within myself. Red pig tails. Freckle-faced. Flying down the street after her show-boating brothers. How I longed to have the freedom they seemed to have, the bravery, the boldness. And I remembered the disappointment that I couldn't do it... not in that way... not in the way I felt I could.  It hurt, all of that remembering and longing.  At 47 years old, watching my son zip around, grinning broadly, I felt the heart of that little girl tighten.  I wanted that joy.
 
If you have a deep scar, that is a door, writes Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  If you have an old, old story, that is a door.  If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door.  If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.
 
The wounded heart of longing and the taste of freedom was my door. I stepped through it.  A small step, at first.  Lifting one hand and then a finger of the other hand.  That turned into one second of no hands. Small moments, small actions, many times.  Again and again, I eased open that door.  And then, as I became accustomed to the way the bike felt beneath me, the way my body responded to the movements of the tires, I became more comfortable and the door swung open wider, my movements became bolder. I listened from the inside out. I felt the road and the shifts of the concrete and the small, previously indiscernible slope.  I experienced how if I went a little faster, the balance became easier.   I lifted my hands off for longer periods, and, each time, I found greater tolerance for the discomfort of fear and of being a little out of balance.
 
You got it, Mama!  Freddi called.  You’re almost there!
 
And then I did it...  I was through the door... gliding, spinning, rolling, flying, and the awe of it was worth every aching moment that came before.  I felt the click of balance, the remembering of a body in alignment, and the bike and me became one thing.  My arms were out like the wings of a bird, and without thought, I experienced my own body adjusting for the swerves, the shakes, the bumps, the turns.  Through that door of longing and vision, powered with the fire of resolve and determination, patience and grace, I realized that what I felt was trust.  I can do it.  I am doing it.  I am. I am. I am.
 
What is the longing that will not leave you be?  What desire dares you in your dreams?  What is the shape of your ache, the one that tells you that you are living smaller than your spirit would like?  These are the doors into our truest selves, the more beautiful, integrated lives we yearn to experience.  How do we walk through them?  First, we allow ourselves to feel, to listen to the language of the soul, to become intimate with its sound, its voice.  We tend to this other way of knowing, that of living from within our lives rather than as if we are watching them from the outside. Then we resolve to try, and if we do, we can trust that life will give us opportunities to practice!  Small steps, many times.  We keep trying, opening, feeling into discomfort, not dying, living through it, getting to know what openness is.  And in every step, we can trust those who have gone before us, who ride alongside us, who call out, You’ve got this!  I’m here with you!  And over time, slowly, or sometimes quickly, we remember ourselves back into being, back into the wildness, the bravery, the joy of our true selves.
 
We sing the flesh back onto our bones, as Pinkola Estes writes, and shed the false coats we have been given.  That too small shape of our lives that others have encouraged us to live within. But not us. Not anymore.  Not in this moment.  No, in us there is a love that shows us a door and we can walk through it.    We can move with that love, and we can remember that that love is us. The sound of our own voice.  The truest wisdom.
 
As summer bursts with beauty and blooming.  As a new school year begins.  As new routines and habits beckon.  As Autumn invites.  As the world around us falls apart and is rebuilt small moment by small moment by each of us who are brave enough to live fully, in love, as ourselves.  Give yourself a taste of that love by deepening the art of listening, of quieting, of contemplating, of letting go, of shedding the too small coat.  Yoga, meditation, prayer, breathwork, story-telling, story-listening, nature-communing, art making, laughter, intentional movement… these are practices that invite us into the land of that Love.  What new depths are calling to you?  And how can I support you in discovering what is here, calling out to you?
 
Open arms, winging forward with love and bravery and clear seeing and the joy of a child, feeling into life, I am yours in movement, stillness, bicycling and breath!
 
Sara