weathered
on those who carry storms and those who withstand them
The other day, I asked someone what they feared most. By the time the question bounced back, I already had six different answers prepared.
Their answer was, “bats.”
Mine was, “Grief. Real, earth-shattering grief.”
The contrast made me laugh at first. It also made me question their emotional depth. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how two people could look at the same sky and notice entirely different things.
I spend most of my life dancing in reveries. A living poem, flooded by depth and emotions, rushing through me like water. I have romanticized everything since I was old enough to form coherent thoughts.
The expression, “head in the clouds,” always made sense to me, because who wouldn’t want to be a cloud? They constantly shift, change, and morph into shapes worthy of looking up at. One with the wind, their journey written by the sky. Sure, there are days they grey, weighed down with all they have gathered along the way. But those moments never last long, because eventually the earth opens and asks for it all back.
The hardest part of being a cloud is sometimes falling for rocks.
I often expect a rock to enter my weightless world filled with wonder and whimsy. Confused as to why they weren’t flying up to meet me, even when I showed them the beautiful scene from above.
For a long time, I thought emotional depth only existed in the sky.
I thought it sounded like late-night conversations about passion and purpose, our deepest dreams and greatest fears. I thought it lived in poetry and honest expression. In shared stories and the parts of ourselves we rarely show the world.
It took me a long time to realize that not all souls look skyward.
From above, rocks can seem simple, superficial even. But in reality, they are witness to it all. Studying the weather, the terroir, the patterns of the clouds. Rocks function best on the ground. They also shift, change, and morph into shapes worthy of collecting, but are always made of the same core. Rather than gathering debris, rocks allow the elements to shape them. In time, they soften edges and polish to a smooth surface.
And during rainfall, they are always there to keep the ground from eroding. They are there to remind the clouds that blue skies will come. And teach them what needs to be carried and what must be surrendered.
I used to mistake stillness for simplicity. Silence for absence.
But rocks withstand the heavy rains and the passage of time with a quiet modesty. Watching the clouds drift by, staying steady when the time comes they are needed.
And maybe that's the point: some people carry the weather, gathering stories and storms as they drift, then pouring themselves back into the earth when they can no longer hold it. While others are built to weather it all and keep the ground steady.
