Diving In

I loved this painting the first time I laid eyes on it.  Hanging on a kitchen wall in my mom's last house, it reminded me of the endless, joyful hours I spent at East Hills swimming pool, jumping off of its diving board.  This morning, while listening to researcher Brene Brown talk about vulnerability with radio host Krista Tippett, I found myself looking at this painting in a new way.

Arms and legs stretched wide, his body spilling outside of the frame, this young boy suddenly seemed to me to be the perfect model of what it means to be vulnerable, to trust that something will be there to catch him.

Looking back over these past 2 months, I realize I, too, have been a model for vulnerability.  Not a perfect model, to be sure, but I have had so many moments since August 1st when it was clear that I was not in charge, that I would have to lean into trust more than rely upon my own wiles.

Brown's research also looked at courage and she found a surprisingly consistent thread that ran through those moments when courage emerged.  To a person, in everyone that she interviewed, their courage was born of vulnerability.  I don't know how courageous it was of me to buy my first sports bra last week (doctor's orders) or how brave I was, there in the Kohl's dressing room, trying to figure out how to get out of a spandex-laced tank top (another doctor's orders), but I do know that I have been asked to do things in the past two months for which I have had no training.

I also know that my family and I had to find courage last weekend, when the most private of emotions--grief--was played out in the most public of places--a funeral home. And I know that I was scared for a time earlier this week, laying on a table with machinery and technicians hovering over me, people marking me up, machines taking photos of my body, invisible light pouring into it.  There, on that table, staring up into a camera that was staring back down at me, I imagined my mom--in some new place or form that I cannot name--looking down at her daughter who has cancer.  I certainly felt vulnerable at that moment.

But through all of this--from my mom's last weeks leading up to her death to my own health issues--I have also felt something else.  I've felt--with utmost certainty--that I would be okay.  No matter what.  I have felt loved, cared for, looked after, prayed over.   I have felt my oneness with this world, this beautiful place brimming with wonder, these awesome beings shimmering with strength.  I have, in these myriad moments of vulnerability, felt my feet firmly upon this earth and been at peace with it.

. . . more times than I can count, I have felt like I was jumping off the diving board at East Hills pool, arms flailing, laughter burbling from my lips, certain the water would hold me.