blinded by the light

I have these sunglasses that i wear when i run, and this morning it really dawned on me that they actually do not work at all the way sunglasses are supposed to (read: block out bright rays while still allowing you to see things in front of you). In fact, they never have done that, though it seems i'm just grasping this fact now. What they do offer me is momentary blindness when the sun shines fully in my face. It's funny because they're actually made by some running company or other and i got them at a running event. I don't think I'm wearing them wrong given that there's a limited way one can mess up the wearing of sunglasses short of putting them on the back of one's head, which i don't. But what happens is that when the sun hits the lens, I experience a complete white-out. It's as if the brightness fractures off the plastic and i'm blocked from seeing a thing. But yet I wear them.

And here's the thing, although i'm usually running over a route that i've traversed literally hundreds of times, when the flash of white hits, for those few seconds I'm completely suspended in nothingness. Can't see a thing in front of me and my heart beats faster not from the exercise, but from the exhilaration/panic of What If? What if I trip? What if I smash into something? What if I squash a squirrel? What if I go flying? What is ahead of me?

And what of that? I think i'm starting to understand that the less i can see, the more i can fly, mainly because there's no limit. When i do the proverbial seeing, I build up horizons and end-of-earth kinds of spaces. I invent windows and walls to bash into and get scared of flying too close to the sun. If i accept that i can't make out/up what's ahead, there's a lot more there there. Now for all intents that seems a pretty awesome thought, yet instead it terrifies me. It suggests flying without a net, soaring into my air space without a landing strip. Even as i'm running over terrain that i've done time and time again, it all feels differently when i can't actually see the ground under my feet or the one inch in front of me (and yes, i'm talking running/sunglasses and living life here). Looking for the road and finding none.

In the dance studio lately I've felt the impulse to truly fly, to climb higher, catch more air in my spins, and the subjects been brought up to get me more on my feet. Less bound on the ground, more unfurling upward. I'm all for it when i lead from my heart. When my mind gets involved, i drop back to my knees. Hmmm. Because what scares me most when i'm up there moving is that i'll fall and hurt myself. I want to wrap around the thought that the falling and the hurting is ok, in fact necessary, as is the lifting up and the pleasure, which happens also. I'm sensing that there's nothing solid to wrap around. The ground that is my life is shifting all the time and it still scares the hell out of me, but my heart beating fast is a good sign, whether running, dancing, breathing, it's all living and as far as i'm aware, no squirrels have been harmed in the process, cuz they see me coming with those sunglasses and that goofy smile and they get out of the way. Now it's time for me to get out of my own way.