"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail."

I am perched, uneasy on crest of a cliff, looking into the abyss of nothingness, and across it to time and promise that can be mine, if with guts and gamble I let go of the known. Let go to teeter on a tightrope, like an tenderfoot circus performer, my fingers fumbling for a hand to hold where there is only a perilous plunge, down, down, down through the tiers of air and atmosphere, towards the unforgiving ground. Oh, how far is there to fall?



It is this question that has the wood beams of my bedroom bowing with the fitful treading of my feet, circling the chair that serves as a nightstand, the cherry wood dresser and desk, over and over, while my mind churns like a small, warm whirlpool, ebbing away all ease. Time is a procession of mountains to climb, of craggy cliffs to cross, summon the spirit to step away from your sanctuary, into the untold and uncharted, once, then find you must draw up the fearlessness from your blood again and again.



A chance has come to me, like a papered parcel on the doorway of my soul, its insides an enigma that if unwrapped could unveil a keyhole of hope or a death trap of despair. It is not the going forward that I'm afraid of, or the who and the what I will then meet, but rather that it could all lead to dead end, or into a rip current that will tug and take my limbs through the black waters of my past, backwards through the chapters I thought to be concluded.



This chance, is the chance to be one of New York City, once more. Though I need the sea and the sun, the unruly stretches of land untouched by time, the trees and the serenity, I need this city too. It's the possibilities and the impossibilities of it, the frenzy and the fire, the tuck and toughness, and how the hemispheres, with all their ways of life, are folded into the foundations, the stacks of studios and stores, rolled into the residencies, and fluorescent lit offices.



I know that my soul will grow stale and stationary if I stay, if I scrap the pieces of this puzzle when they could complete such a wondrous memory. Stillness strikes a flame of fear that licks at the slight of hunger that exists in me for practiced patterns and familiarity, it sears and singes all hesitations, until courage comes forth from the ashes. I must strive towards these possibilities, though this world waits to tear into me with tart teeth.

For there always exists hurdles to surmount, and mistakes to make. Never let the fall keep you from going forth. We will all fall, embrace the fall, don't be afraid to bleed. Stand, with your skinned knees, and flick the dirt free with your fingertips. Pick the pieces up of these mistakes, of this mess; mend your worries, and your weary heart.

You can always open to a new page, a page that is pure color and possibility, a page that has yet to be penned. Banish the thought that it is too late, even when, even though, time has since slipped away. Go on, dear friend. You can always begin again.

Are you ever afraid you'll run out of second chances?

Title Quote: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Photo Credits: Anna Verlet, Pony Tail, David Shama, Nirrimi Joy, Lauren Doughty, and Lee G.