I lost a dear friend over this past weekend. My former editor, and later, writing partner – someone whose presence served as a catalyst in so many countless ways. Certainly more than what my simple words can say. “It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she’d say. “Just write; the words will find their way.”

She introduced me to Rumi and Neil Gaiman; jumping goats and vegan ‘egg creams.’  But, more so, through her own life example, she taught me to soar. “We make our own wings around here,” she wrote. “Some days, you feel an ache in that spot in your back where there could be wings, and instead there’s the weight of the world, the weight of your world, the weight of waiting… Some days it’s just too much.”

As we move through this life, our circumstances will test us. We may become weathered and worn, our long-standing hope and ideologies – once an immutable beacon – fading curiously into the inky darkness of our own uncertainty. What once made us thrive, now an unrelenting burden.

And, what choices do we have? We can either crumble like dust in the hands of Intention, or – we can gather up all those broken remnants, and using faith, strengthen our resolve.

As she so eloquently shared, ”we make our own wings around here.”

Today, I wanted to lend the gift of her light to our space here – that her words may, in some way, perservere. That we may each, in our own way, learn to stand bravely at the edge – and, never looking back, WE BECOME.

We become.

From Kate Bartollota, ‘We Make Our Own Wings’.

“We make our own wings around here.

We’ve stopped waiting for the right time.

We’ve stepped to the edge and looked down.

We’ve taken all our bits of dreams, duct tape and chicken wire;

Scribbles in margins, late night scheming and the fear in the pit of our stomachs;

Sweat, tears and feathers lovely blackbirds left behind

And put them all together

To make our own wings.

We’ve stopped waiting for permission

To be bigger

To be bolder

To create.

And instead, we wrote our own ticket.

(Because that’s what we do in these parts.)

We are the ones who stay hungry

Stay on our toes, tip-toed at the edge

With half-broken, rigged together wings

We’ve made ourselves.

And then we leap.”

My friends, on this day I ask simply that you share in her light.

A link to the original post: https://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/06/we-make-our-own-wings/

A link to Kate’s work on Elephant Journal: https://www.elephantjournal.com/author/kate-bartolotta/