Grounded

Grounded. 

A multi-meaning word. 

As a kid, a word we feared. It was silly for me to fear it, but I did. 

"Betsy, you are so lucky your parents don't believe in grounding you," as my best neighbor friend hauled her bike to the garage wall. Grounded from her bike, two weeks. This punished me too. So, yeah, I was afraid of the word. 

Grounded. 

A word of hope and sensibility. A pure possibility seems available when someone is grounded. So settled and unfurrowed. So wise and ready. Unshakable. 

Grounded.

What I needed to do today. The kind of grounding I needed to seek because my awareness of reality was shaken. My heart beat in my head. Doors clashed like lightning. The sting behind my eyes slowed down sound and motion. I needed to get outside. I needed the actual ground to feel grounded, settled, aware. 

I pushed the lightning doors into the glass iced light. The brightness only distracted by the screams. Screams of recess, five and six-year-olds chasing and racing. I stopped to chat with one or two, slowly making my way to the woods behind the building. Ice patches everywhere; I feared falling. I wanted no attention. I wanted solace. I wanted to touch the dirt. 

I walked.

Some of my steps the first, some of them the second. Patches of frozen decay poked from below while bits of new life were already surfacing. 

Reminders. 

Something new can always come from something gone. 

I walked. 

I smelled. 

I breathed. 

I blinked. 

Hands in my pockets then out, I knelt to find a stick. Something to take with me, to keep with me, to ground me even when I can't come to the woods. 

The whistle blew—time to head back. Back to my room, with my stick in hand.