Freefall

© dana macy 2010

read this in German

You had a talent for escaping the ordinary, like the time your parachute didn’t open. Instead of crashing to your death from three thousand feet, a voice entered your head. That’s what you told me: a voice came into your head during free fall and changed your destiny.

The voice told me to pull with all my strength and will. I thought nothing, I felt nothing. My life did not flash before me. In the last seconds, two pockets bloomed and broke my fall. I hit the fresh- plowed dirt of a cornfield. The ground was soft and forgiving, and, I was looking at the sky and not the ground. Again, forgiving. It took years to understand.

Years later…

We meet again. What are the chances? Last I heard you were falling through space…headed for a shallow grave.

So you remember my story? Back then I thought I’d been spared for a reason, that a higher calling awaited and my life might be somehow…well, enlightened—I might somehow escape the traps of this life.  Now I tell you, that nothing has changed.

How has nothing changed, may I ask?

It’s a riddle you know. We were between youth and adult, and we played like children without a care. Life flowed. We fell down, stood up, and laughed at our foibles. One day we stood up and saw that years had passed. Here was another world and it was serious business. We shed tears and tears became pools and pools became oceans. Dams broke, and we slipped, falling into a dream of the drowning masses. We faced a strange beast, vicious, insidious, and wondered if this life was only illusion.

Our hearts beat wildly, touching death, and we rattled with fear. We saw ourselves for what we are, mere homunculus blobs in free fall. There were moments when the sun caught us screaming for our lives, screaming like children sliding down an icy hill on a winter day.

Torment followed thrills and we asked, why am I here?  God, please don’t let me make this mistake again. God answered and grace descended upon us. We woke, grasping for the joy of our child life. We found ourselves smiling— for no reason at all. We went for the free fall. We played our parts and it was beautiful. It was the bliss of lovemaking where we disappear and are born again with fresh eyes. A sense of one-ness with all was within our grasp. Even the relentless din of humanity was a beautiful thing. Our human condition was perfect as it is. We thought we’d found meaning after all…until we fell into the dream—dancing in a void. Living the inescapable dark.

We dreamed over and over, and on waking we asked, how did I get here? Where am I? How do I get out? There were no answers, no escape, so we went on dreaming. Our dreams became playgrounds where we watched our children grow. We watched them fall and cry our unshed tears. They dreamed this life all over again. We watched and blessed them, willing meaning and love into their lives.

We watch these children and see them in free fall searching for a higher lovemaking, and we know that all is perfect and good.