I choose love. I choose Paris.
***
The only piece
of furniture I keep from my former Austin apartment is a grand picture of
Paris. The photo demands a full wall space for its noble residence. Size is a
key factor in determining its placement in a home, but it’s the scene depicted
that commands wistful adoration: a street shot of hot air balloons floating
above the dreamy majestic rooftops of a city that is (and will always be) my
first love.
I delight in
the wondrous whimsy of such a moment. I envision a nonchalant passerby casually
looking up and suddenly she’s swept up in astonishment to see a day transformed
by the elegant release of vividly and boldly patterned hot air balloons into a
brooding Parisian sky. And she just happened to have a camera close by, tucked
in a purse or the pocket of a coat. The luck.
Every time I
glance at the photo I feel lucky, too, because I am still rather surprised to
own such a piece. This is the type of photo I’d hover over in awe at a friend’s
house, not thinking I could ever personally possess a photo detailing such
serendipitous splendor in my own space.
But I do.
Tonight,
I sit across from it in its new home, still enchanted and intrigued by the
scene, and my mind gallops across the landscape of this past year and how I
arrived here – in this bungalow in Austin with this picture of Paris. Instead
of feeling lifted and soaring high like those peppy hot air balloons, the
review pops my feel-good mood, and I am grounded by a flood of remembrances.
My twenty-sixth
year I christened as my year of love. Love emerged as my spirit-word, an
intention planted to see what a year with love as my guide would shape out to
be.
In retrospect,
the year of love doesn’t sparkle with sweetness, lightness, foot-popping
romances. The romance is gritty, complex, challenging.
The year of
love leaves me heavyhearted with lessons and heartaches, fiercely committed to
my tribe, bit more broken and a bit more secure, brave and capable, traumatized
and shaken to my core.
The year of
love comes to a close at a time at a time where I am afraid to even say love. A
warped side effect of trauma. This irrational fear seizes and squeezes and
stamps out joy in the attempt to keep me safe, because if I tell you I love you
I am vulnerable to the unexpected, forceful gusts from the Universe that can
send me tumbling and falling.
For weeks I’ve
been racing away from saying and even writing “I love you.” I’ve pirouetted
around love and adopted honeyed-expressions to express the depths of feeling I
hold for my dear ones.
How can I end
the year of love petrified to voice and live love?
The lesson is
to let go of expectations. My years with spirit-words typically reveal the back
roads, push me to forge new tunnels of understanding into the vast depths of
being, of soul.
Perhaps it’s
only timely that the most traumatic experience of my life happened during the
year of love. This is the real test to choose love.
Love is the
remedy to the fear. Love is the answer to how I will proceed, to how I will
wrap myself up in softness and sacredness and security. I love myself through
the post-trauma. And the fear hovering close to telling my dear ones and
writing “I love you” in a text fades. This is no way to live. Life is precious,
and if the bravest decision I make all day is to tell my dad or my listening
friend in Lexington that I love them, then this is enough.
Love frees me
to live without fear.
Freedom, the spirit-word eager to sprint
and rush into the vibrancy of life, will continue to be informed by love.
Love feels like freedom, freedom
feels like love, so my lessons with love continue as I step forward into my
twenty-seventh year.
Freedom blooms
and rises like those hot air balloons taking flight.
As I look at
this photo, I think of how it carries scenes of love and kindness outside its
frame. My best friend, my lighthouse, my Britney Spears sing-along companion,
witnessed my magnetism to the scene and so she bought it as a house-welcoming
present.
I think of the
two guys who helped me move out from my former place, which wasn’t so much a
move-out as it was a race to flee. These kindhearted gentlemen gave their
Thursday evening to assist in packing, and after I made my decision to keep the
photo, without a complaint, they struggled and succeeded in pitching and tying
the photo to the top of the car, so Paris accompanied me on my breakaway.
I think of my
new roommate who rearranged her living room to make space to debut and hang the
photo, because she knew the photo was dear to me, and she wants her home to my
home, and her warm generosity and graciousness humbles me.
Love ensured
that the hot air balloons would be present on the ongoing journey toward
twenty-seven, toward freedom which will be fueled by love, and liberated
daydreams. I am free to shine brighter in radical authenticity, and deepen the
love for the woman I am constantly becoming. And she may just want to go see
the hot air balloon festival in Albuquerque and perhaps, even venture to Paris,
too. And she will proceed freed to love and be love.
