Lightness

Lightness, noun, being able to let go. Of people. Of dreams. Of the Earth itself. I am light, I tell myself, I take myself lightly, and so I let go. The Earth seeps away as gravity and loss shed their meanings. I think of the stars and their distance. I think of her and her absence, and I am okay with this. I’m flying out past the nebulas, out beyond mens knowing, and I am okay with this. Things are as they should be. Or at least things are as they are. Out here there’s no difference.

The axes of my ego change: I imagine centuries instead of tomorrows, lightyears instead of inches, stars instead of specks. Out here, of what consequence is the distance between them? Out here, what is the weight of her absence? I am light. I’ve learned to let go. Is transcendence merely zooming out on the axes? Out here, that doesn’t seem so unbelievable.

I think of years, of my years, and they are so short next to the centuries. I think of my dreams, and they are so small next to the stars. I think of her and her absence, and it is nothing next to lightyears between everything else. I am light. I’ve learned to let go.

Until I think her head resting on my chest. Cracking my knuckles out of boredom. Making pancakes in the morning. And suddenly I think flying might just be falling in a different direction: that if you divide the stars and the specks by the infinite they only become equal. So gravity again takes hold and I am falling back to the Earth.

The axes change and at once tomorrows mean a great deal more than centuries. Suddenly the miles that separate her from me become infinitely further than lightyears. I think of transubstantiation and of an amateur magician forgetting which hand the coin is under. I think of multiplication. I think of the stars and their distance. I think of her and her absence and I am pulled down, down into this green Earth, and I hold on for I have not learned to let go.

She is gone and the continents come back into focus while the tempo increases. The clouds condense on my skin as I retrace my flight path. To let go or to hold on. To fly or to fall. I remember going to this beach as a child and walking out to were I could just barely touch the bottom. I remember resting there for a while, working up the courage to push off just a bit, before, invariably, reaching out a panicked foot for the sand below. If angels fly and demons fell then man is given to do both. To fly and to fall, to let go and to hold on. Somehow both all at once and in rapid succession.