By Alexander Baxevanis (Flickr: Sailboat & Sunset) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
I want to be the sails.
I want to unfurl myself into the wind and be caught up and set free. I want to see all the things, travel to all the places, meet all the people.
I want the only sound to be the rushing, whipping force of moving forward. The only thought through my mind that of where I land. What’s ahead. I want to be focused only on me, the sails, and getting better at steering myself into the storm. I want to feel lightness against brutality and the freedom that comes from holding up against the wind.
But really, I’m the anchor.
I’m heavy with doubt and every chain is built from leaden thoughts of why I shouldn’t and how I can’t.
I sink.
I’m holding myself down, and anyone who might be on the journey with me at any given time. I’m the anchor that keeps us still, stagnant. While there may be rocking now and then when the sea kicks up, the wind can’t take me anywhere but in circles.
He’s the steady crewman.
Hands on his hips. Shaking his head now and then, but generally with a cocked eyebrow and lips always on the verge of smiling. He’s the one who claps his hands together and rubs them for a bit as he eyes the situation and springs into action.
He pulls me up, hand over hand, out of the muck I’ve sunk myself into at the bottom of the sea. Makes sure I’m back on board, even if I’m just curled up at his feet coughing up water.
Then he raises the mast, unleashes the mainstay, and steers into the wind.
Even if he’s warily eyeing the storm.
Even when he’s worried he’ll be tossed overboard.
He holds on, steady and true. Because no matter how low that anchor sinks, and how much I think I’m wrapped up in its chains . . . somehow he still believes I’m the sails.
When he looks for me, he looks up. Eyes squinting against the sun, sure that he’ll see me there in the wind.
I love that he looks for me in the sails, even when I’ve slid off to sink into the sea.
allison writes 