You can have clouds and letters.

You Can't Have It All
Barbara Ras

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But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
though often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam's twin is blood.
You can have the skin at the center between a man's legs,
so solid, so doll-like. You can have the life of the mind,
glowing occasionally in priestly vestments, never admitting pettiness,
never stooping to bribe the sullen guard who'll tell you
all roads narrow at the border.
You can speak a foreign language, sometimes,
and it can mean something. You can visit the marker on the grave
where your father wept openly. You can't bring back the dead,
but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands
as if they meant to spend a lifetime together. And you can be grateful
for makeup, the way it kisses your face, half spice, half amnesia, grateful
for Mozart, his many notes racing one another towards joy, for towels
sucking up the drops on your clean skin, and for deeper thirsts,
for passion fruit, for saliva. You can have the dream,
the dream of Egypt, the horses of Egypt and you riding in the hot sand.
You can have your grandfather sitting on the side of your bed,
at least for a while, you can have clouds and letters, the leaping
of distances, and Indian food with yellow sauce like sunrise.
You can't count on grace to pick you out of a crowd
but here is your friend to teach you how to high jump,
how to throw yourself over the bar, backwards,
until you learn about love, about sweet surrender,
and here are periwinkles, buses that kneel, farms in the mind
as real as Africa. And when adulthood fails you,
you can still summon the memory of the black swan on the pond
of your childhood, the rye bread with peanut butter and bananas
your grandmother gave you while the rest of the family slept.
There is the voice you can still summon at will, like your mother's,
it will always whisper, you can't have it all,
but there is this.

Shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings.

"Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago in the heart of a far away star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. Until, eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Galel and there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice, it is a waste!"-- the Doctor to Merry Galel on "The Rings of Akhaten" (Doctor Who!)

Do hard stuff.

They all wanted to climb the cliff. There was a cave up there, and the three of them were ready to explore, head lights and all. I eyed the mouth of the cave warily, considered the climb. The way up wouldn't be easy. It was nearly a perfectly vertical climb in some places, though you could see where attacking the angles of the rocks and dirt could give you some relief. Just a little. The way down would be harder, almost, coming down so steeply, trying to keep momentum and gravity from joining forces.

I didn't want to do it.

I told them that. "I'll just wait here," I said. I had my camera; I could explore the creek and take some pictures. Get some alone time. I ignored the way their faces fell, or tried to.

Wayland pushed. "Come on," he said. "You can do this." Madeleine, who was already on her way up, came back. "I'll help you," she offered.

Violet was already ahead of all of us, scaling the rocks with ease.

How does she do that? I wondered. How do any of them?

Finally I agreed to try the climb.

They all climbed up without me and I took my time, almost stubbornly slow. Climbing a little, pausing. Staring up at them, feeling: Nothing. Well, not nothing. Sort of a tug downward, I guess. A tiny voice in my head telling me to go back. That I could stay on the ground and explore the creek alone, take my pictures. And a tug upward, too, watching their complete ease with the task: up and up, so sure of themselves. I wanted to be them. I wanted to be with them. But I wanted to not have to try.

I never want to try. I want it to be easy.

So up and up I went.

They reached the mouth of the cave and I sat on one of the tiny ledges I found on the way up and stared at them. They weren't all that far away now. It would take me less than a minute to get there. But even coming so far, the tug downward was still there. Stop. Stay. You don't have to do this.

"What's wrong?" Wayland asked.

"Do you need more help?" Madeleine asked.

"I don't want to climb," I said.

Violet came closer to the ledge and peered down at me. "Well, you have to climb sometimes," Violet said. "Otherwise you won't know if you can do it. And you will never know how fun it can be."

Why is my kid smarter than I am? I wondered.

I did go the rest of the way, but I didn't explore the cave. And I didn't feel it, that thing I am sure they were feeling. Just connectedness. A belonging. A natural ease with themselves and their relation to things.

I consoled myself there at the mouth of the cave, waiting for them to come back. It's OK if climbing isn't for you, I told myself. Not everyone likes to climb.

But it isn't really about the climb, is it? It's about being afraid and unsure and letting that dictate how you enjoy your life. Or how you don't at all.

When was the last time I did something challenging? Frightening? Something that yanked me right out of my comfort zone? When did I last do the good growing? The kind where you plunge your hands into dirt and sift through the sand, the kind that leaves you raw and new and electrified. When was the last time I allowed myself to be a conduit for the sort of energy I want to project to the world? That I want my kids to have?

Do hard stuff, was my takeaway here, because I have stopped growing. Just stopped. Thanks, kid, for teaching me.