What Are You Afraid of Today? Jump.

The small boy walks through the tiny mobile home and stands at the edge of a door to no where. It’s a four-foot drop to the ground. His bare toes curl around the edge of the threshold. Spring meanders through the grass. The breeze pushes his wispy hair into dancing. He leans forward, falling, through the air and the years and into the arms of his grandfather.

Some time in the future the small boy will stand behind a recliner, combing his grandfather’s hair on a cold Sunday afternoon in exchange for a quarter.

Some time after that his grandfather will take him to the farmer’s market in the morning. The boy will sit on the console between the two front seats. The van will smell of hot coffee.

Some time after that the boy will walk barefoot with his cousins as they cover the long distance from his grandfather’s graveside to the house where his grandmother will live alone.

These years are moments. They are the subtle leaning, the sharp pushing off into air saturated with the future.

* * * * *

Sometimes courage comes down to us through the generations, embedded in DNA, a predisposed affinity for risk. At other times it springs up on us unawares, like the memory of a small boy diving into the arms of his grandfather.

But courage always comes in the face of fear.

What are you afraid of today?

* * * * *

Jump.

4 Replies to “What Are You Afraid of Today? Jump.”

  1. If I were to jump. I am sure I would break something. Mentally, I feel like I am making a jump to just get out of bed in the morning. My life is at a point where I do more ‘accepting’ than ‘jumping’ – but I made a lot of ‘ jumps’ in my younger years. Almost every time I was terrified, but in most cases, the jump did not harm me.

  2. If I jump off the safe banks of my memoir and jump into the murky, pool of stirred up memories. This spirited lively prairie girl lifts her balled-up fists of protection. As I hit the surface and plunge into the slimy, cold, blood-sucker filled depth, my cathartic lungs hold in the life-giving air, until I surface again and release all I’ve held in, and suck in fresh, hope-filled, pure oxygenated thought, balled-up fists flung wide open,

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