Flight Risk -  

A series of short stories exploring

the power of connection:

trust and betrayal,

love and desire,

fulfillment and transgression.

I want to tell her to believe that someday her desires will come into alignment, be reflected in the world she is building, that her future holds a recompense for her past. I want her to stay wild, to build wings, and soar… but in the right season, in tune with the rhythm of her heart as it beats, syncopated with a universe ready to echo its cadence. “There will be a time”, I whisper to her, a point on the fulcrum where she can reside - a space between up and down, here and there, now and never. I tell her a story about claiming what was taken, finding what was lost, rebuilding what was shattered, the belief that there is a balance of equity allowing for both the creation of a new experience and the deconstruction of an old one. Seeing the illusion of our own lives can feel like a great emptiness. We build, we create, we weave lives and relationships together to form a nest in which to find shelter, an anchor in a sea of lifetimes and moments unfolding one after another. And, in the end, it all amounts to an indrawn breath of air, a short flight in an infinite sky, a quiet release. I steady myself against the wind and rest until each line woven connects, showing me a pattern that is invisible when I am too close to it. Like the hawk, I am willing to sit in stillness, observing dispassionately while I wait for the elements to line up in my favor. There are times where every pulse of my heart is aching for flight, but still, I want to circle and return to something solid to land upon. Someday I will just have to trust that the wind will be enough to carry me long enough to fully spread my wings.

2023