Relief

The relief comes with the kindness. The relief comes with the deep breath. The relief comes when you realize it’s okay to close your eyes and that the world, or at least some world, will reappear, that you’ll be in it, and that it’s all okay.

The relief comes from little routines. It comes with the sunrise, from watching the sun play and change colors on the bottoms of the clouds. It comes from the washing machine that chugs through yet another load, somehow. The relief comes with the stuffed animal – or the real one – that is still on the bed when you get home. The relief comes from noticing that things are precisely as alive as we treat them, as alive as we bring our life to them, as alive as we are, all the time. 

Still.

And moving. 

The relief comes from making solid contact with the changeup pitch, the unexpected, the miracle of the unfolding, from encountering the meaningful threshold. It comes from the second chance. It’s in the curveball’s arc.

It’s in her curves, and it’s in his curves. It’s knowing that every hand that touches those curves with reverence is a modern Michelangelo, and it’s in our opening to receive that touch.

The relief comes when the noise ceases, when the thoughts cease. It comes when the music starts, when the inspired thought arrives. The relief comes when the birds hear the parts of us to which we are not listening and sing them back to us. 

The relief comes with the tears. It comes with the laughter. It comes when the two strangely mix,

because they have to. 

Because there’s just

so

much

to feel. 

The relief comes when we carry that out into the world. It comes as we struggle to scrape the windshield on a winter morning, it comes when we apply the magical mixture we carry inside us to clear anything that obscures our vision, through effort or ingenuity. And then, relief comes as we breathe out clouds and fog, and when we pause, and when we notice, then, the shimmering clarity of ice.

The relief comes with the blessing

spoken,

and silent.

The relief comes from feeling all your many loves inside of you. A whole life’s worth. It comes when you’re feeling for them and you feel them feeling for you. 

Relief comes from remembering the voice of Ernie Harwell calling a Tigers game on the radio one summer night in 1970. It comes from remembering the voice of your father, still with you. It comes from knowing that what lives within us never dies. It comes from knowing that we live within, as well.

The relief comes from the cough. It comes with the retching. It comes from whatever clears us out. It comes from the cessation of these things and the difference we feel then.

The relief comes from the sitting, and it comes from the standing up. It comes from getting outside. It comes from stepping in and feeling the warmth, or feeling the cool, feeling the place that is ours, or the place where we are welcomed. 

Relief is in the children’s hands in grandma’s. 

It’s in the children running to the swings.

And it’s in the grandmother’s heart that swells

to follow them.