free

(the portions in quotation marks are taken from a poem by my best friend.)

“barefoot and crazy

but mostly free,”

i discuss with myself

the me that i wish i still knew.

she was contemplative, focused—

i am scatterbrained and distracted.

she was innocent, graceful—

i am worn and bear witness,

self-conscious and uneasy.

a battleground between confidence and self-doubt,

between soaking it all in and articulating the beauty before me,

between knowing what i have learned to know, and learning what i’m told i should.

my mind wanders with my feet to the field,

to distant memories brought close by the familiar sounds

and sights of home.

the sun keeps his promise

to rise and set as he did when we were children,

but now the grass grows shorter

and in different places,

my secret places gone or changed.

i try to fit regardless, and i find only mild satisfaction.

what is this desire?

i scold myself for hiding here,

for waiting as the days pass, as the light drifts

and looks in on me in my quietude.

have i abandoned freedom for fear?

(this question has changed me…)

for fear that i must keep my freedom?

that it is somehow i who must portion off some days to be free

and others to be full, filled by obligations and “the rest”?

we cannot live as we once did,

and yet we must.

we cannot forget the feeling of dirt and sand and grass and stone beneath our feet.

“we are free, to the same extent we are fearless.”

they are bound up in each other,

the freedom to fly and the fear of the fall.

they direct our steps,

sometimes careful, sometimes reckless.

both can result in injury,

one results in joy despite pain.

in my hands, in my feet

i remember beauty the way it should be.

“barefoot, be free.”