When I saw you last I noticed the lag in your step, the hesitancy of your golf swing, historically fluid and power-driven. I saw, as we tossed the frisbee, the stagger in your follow-thru as the disc went straight to the Earth rather than spinning loftily and floating down easily to its destination.

I hurt at the notion of your weakening self— waiting for the blank stare to give way to your essence. I wait for my older brother to show up, the one who laughs easily and has the eternal preppy handsomeness of a Ralph Loren model, flashing a toothy smile, taking a swig from his longneck beer asking me stealthily “Hey you got any weed?” Wait there it is, your essence breaking through the haze.

The globe spins on, time rushes forward, the evidence blatant on my face. Lines etched, expressions easily marked from the spectrum of emotions displayed, seeing around me the haunting signs that I am on the flip-side of my expected lifespan. My brother’s body is failing him and I reach in and feel around for some previously experienced joy to remind him— he is still him and I am still me. Do I see my future self in him? Possibly, yes, minus the detrimental effects of repression of emotions which so many men of his generation experienced. I’m not a repressor possibly too much of a releaser. There is no doubt the voice must rise and release and if it doesn’t the pressure building goes somewhere.

What of the other side? What happens when the physical is shed, spirit flowing unencumbered? Is there a recognition— an examination of what was and why, or is it a freeing process with all understood in a different context, a state so all omniscient that examination is redundant? I won’t know until I shed the weight and maybe not then.

In frustration my hands shake, I am hesitant and uncertain in movement at times despite my religious practices of deep breathing and calming perspectives. I honor these signals of break down albeit sometimes until they knock down my door. Will the warriors, the core work, the extensions and compressions spare me a similar fate? No way of knowing. I continue to steady myself physically and emotionally as I’ve always done. I practice finding center and feeling it all— the pain, the joy, the uncertainty, the frustration. Is that my divine prescription? I will not know until that day when I too am nearing the reckoning of all I have chosen to “be”. Being kind, feeling buoyant. Being someone I don’t like and feeling heartbroken. Being someone I love and showing her to the world, Being uncertain, plodding forth clumsily. Being in line and flowing with grace.
It’s all me. At least it’s me this time around. Because I sit with my intention to heal myself and help others find practices to calm the chaos I do more than the average reflection. My DNA will not be left to a younger more perfect version of myself. I will not see the fruit of my divine connection in the cherub face of a curly haired toddler. I, with my own actions and choices, on my own curving, sometimes rocky and intensely inclined road, walk steadily, stopping at appropriate markers to sob voraciously at the choice I just made, or the choice I made 35 years ago, or the thing that I don’t hold, or the attribute I see in someone I admire that I cannot seem to manifest in myself. I, who at times sees so clearly, my divine beauty shine forth so powerfully that I must, at that very moment, bow in humility. I who spent my life being the critical, abusive partner to my curious and loving other self, pushing her down as I soaked in the master class society had modeled. In my Autumnal Equinox I see and nurture that shaky uncertain, silenced beauty that pops it’s remarkable energy by knocking on my door— “Hey remember me? Can I come in?”

The leaves are dropping but a wondrous display of reds, oranges and golds hang on to the still strong template of my struggling humanity. I place hope in the notion that if I assist others, help them excavate a beautiful piece just striking enough to let them glimpse their own beauty with such clear focus that they cannot deny their own spectacular potential will that help?

I write to free my own unbridled potential, hoping I can see, in myself, the potential that still runs free across the landscape of my physicality, ever strengthening. I fight my mind’s conclusion that I too will succumb to a severe physical breakdown, my stubbornness reigning as I refuse to believe that it has to be the way I’m told it has always been.

All of us, on some unpredictable day in the future will fade. For some it will be a long span to finality— as in Joe’s case— for others it may be in a divine flash. I wish I could predict that day for me but I can’t, so I will continue to practice living this day and seeking out as many reasons as I can to love life up.

Tricia Schwaba, 2022