Fractured

Canadian Geese | Canon Photography

Life as fractures.

Is it in the way we trip and fall as children, get back up, trusting we are impenetrable to the hairline fractures of life, which tear slowly into our flexible bones, that we begin the journey of broken?

The uprooting from one home to another. Where flowers once bloomed and friends were made. The tender goodbyes. Begin again.

Like Kacey Musgrove’s song, “The Architect” says,

“Sometimes I look in the mirror
And wish I could make a request
Could I pray it away? Am I shapeable clay
Or is this as good as it gets?”

This week: Seventeen and struggling. A best friend is suddenly and unexpectedly gone. Two days of school counseling. Fractured. Sitting in a classroom staring at an empty chair, while the rest of the world moves on. Fractions on the whiteboard.

And those who love you carry fractured conversations. About anything except for how you feel.

Why do we run so fast into the arms of love? parenthood? Love clinging to fractured pieces of pain, worry, sacrifice, lingering towards wisdom. Bits and pieces of pride, regret, joy.

Old age reminding us we will always be children captured somewhere in time grimacing on hot sand, refusing to eat eggs, crying when the movie ended.

I still do.

I remind them too that they are still my children who grimaced, refused and cried when it was over. I did too when they left home…

And we grow up with images of people we never knew carrying pieces around for our parents to see. Our eyes are like his, cheekbones like hers. And what of their stories, the pains and the joys? Are we fractured hand-me-downs?

Can we choose new?

Are the fractures pieces of the past melding into legend, disappearing in tones of gray as we cling to our youth. The youth I fought for, reflecting back at me in the car window, an elderly woman by my side, arms linked. Me, the other elderly. I am natural now. It’s a whole new world.

We’re at Denny’s.

Did the great Architect organize this as I stare across the table at myself?

Fractured go the outside layers of who I was and who I am becoming. I am not done yet. My renewed driver’s license doesn’t match my new look. Rebel.

The child at play who flings her teddy high into the air only to knock down an image of a wedding that took place almost 40 years ago. Ours. I could not put it back together. A new frame is on the way. A better version of the original. Maybe.

Bones fused in intermittent pain, eyes shaped like macular fried eggs refusing to believe new glasses won’t work. Mine still working with clever readers.

In between the two elders runs a small stallion.

Ever so slightly tamed, uninhibited, she says, “sorry Nana.” I say, “it’s just a frame.” Let’s dance to Frozen.” Let it go. Where are we going?

Uninhibited imagination. Circular rewinds. A young child soaring toward a moon landing… as her namesake orbits, staring at blurry screens, feeling unseen.

And me? requiring space and a steady pace toward the sun. Close my eyes. Take a breath. I am impatient. Look in the mirror, “not nice to meet you,” I say.

God, I need to talk to you.

Cracks in my bones. Just enough to let the light of hope in and not enough to be fully shattered. Or fully shatter.

Splintered fragments tamed in their place. Don’t forget to let Teddy see out the window. I’m sorry you can’t see. Count the trees. I’m sorry you can’t see. I’ll drive you by the pink house. No, it’s really pink. We’ll be home soon. It’s nap-time.

I can feel the music and I can hear the words and there is a tremendous wave washing over my eyes.

Untold stories yet to be told. Again.

Beautiful poetry recited perfectly from childhood.

Life as fractures.