Clandestine Confessions

“I like this one,” I said standing in front of a print with five horses galloping in the sand.
We were walking through our fifth gallery. I asked him to lead every aspect of the day, with him being the local and me the tourist. Lately he had become interested in art so we spent the early afternoon doing a tour of every gallery on the main street of Park City.
That was not his original intention, he later admitted, but I would not have traded one second of it.
–
“Have to be honest,” he said. “I am not a huge fan of horses.”
I tried to restrain my expression of shock.
“But it is so majestic when they just take off and run. A picture of true freedom.”
“Well dogs and cats run too.”
“Yes, but have you ever been moved by seeing a dog run?”
“No. But also never have been moved by horses running either.”
I let out a laugh.
“Noted,” I say. “But I think this means we need you to experience horseback riding on the beach. It may change your mind.”
–
He stopped.
“What about this one? I like it a lot. The choice of bold colors. All the butterflies coming out of it.”
Art mimicking reality.
A tear slowly falls.
“Now that,” I say. “We can both agree on. But, I may be biased. I have a slight thing for butterflies.”
–
They did not stop showing up in that art gallery.
They were painted on a wall mural in Nashville.
Surrounded the cactus in the Saguaro National Park.
On the bumper sticker on the car in Idaho.
At the door of the Anthony Chapel in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
On the buses in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (we can thank Dolly Parton for that one).
At the Hungry Horse Dam in Montana.
Fluttered around the flowers in Waco, Texas.
Sat on the railing at the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC.
The Butterfly Burger restaurant in Sedona, Arizona.
–
And then my favorite….
The one I left behind.
Written in the sand with my finger at the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado.
For the world to know the butterfly was there.
Beautifully and boldly in flight – healed, unhindered, alive, awakened.
Living as a flying impossibility, defying all odds to have my wings.
–
It makes no logical sense for me to exist – a fact I have lived in for two decades; a heavier emphasis on the last ten years.
It is a grounding truth that keeps me flying; one I intentionally choose to keep at the forefront of my soul every second.
Because it is that awareness that sustains my ability to see the world as I do – in magnificence and vibrancy and beauty. Colors brighter, emotions deeper, experiences richer.
That keeps me forever chasing after the “more” – now knowing the glory of what existed beyond the confining walls I was so petrified to abandon and in constant wonder what else there could be.
That allows me the endurance to persevere through every trial, every wound, every betrayal because it is an unshakeable truth within me they all hold purpose. A knowing I have because I have lived in it – time and time again. Ever accumulating evidence with every breath that fills my lungs.
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And although I never stray from it, I still cry in awe that this is the reality I get the immense privilege to call mine.
And I pray that never ceases.
That I never become desensitized to the splendor of being alive.
That it never becomes so ordinary I stop seeing how extraordinary living in a miracle is.
That I never become so used to flying I become numb to the thrill of seeing life from this perspective.
That I never become so accustomed to having wings that I fail to recognize the power they hold to start a butterfly effect around the world…