soft place to land

A soft place to land is what I have wanted to show others. That’s what I want to offer them. In my own years of recovering from trauma and learning how to live with grief.  Offering a soft place to land took a little cultivating, I was able to do it without a plan in place. I didn’t know this was what I wanted until a few years ago. Out of frustration in my own relationships, or my own mind I would crave it. 

Years earlier before Suz and I were together, and we were beginning our friendship I remember being really uncomfortable in the divorce of the pressure of new kids and my new life without my Dad and Carol. I told her I wanted a soft place to land. She said “You can be your own soft place to land”. At first I felt dismissed and confused. It was empowering in hindsight and her advice led me to allow others or at least direct them how to find their own safe space. Their own solace. 

Sometimes offering a soft place to land starts with a smile sometimes it starts with, a thank you to a stranger, sometimes it’s a yoga class letting them know that they are love sacred and needed on this earth and not in spite of anything but because of everything they are everything they offer all their thoughts all their selves, all the messy, all the good all the bad.

A soft place to land may be in friendships. It may be in meditation. It may be on our yoga mats, it may be in true confessions, and late night truth serum to a friend, although I never find these easy. I don’t even find them easy now writing them out a soft place to land for me never comes in hurting another being hurt.

A soft place to land comes from an amazing sense of gratitude, even when our worlds are upside down, as my dear friend, Neill and I have joked for years a soft place to land is looking at our water faucet And having running water: the right side is cold the left side hot water, what a thing to have hot water within a moments notice. We turn the knob and we have hot clean-ish water.

Soft place to land is admitting our faults and having a friend that says “yeah, I already knew that about you and it’s okay. You try really hard or you love big or we already know your heart Emmy”. 

A soft place to land, as being honest with herself, not necessarily initially, but once we’ve settled into the truth of us once we’ve settled into the fact that we’re not too much and we’re more than enough.

A soft place to land is silver linings even in the midst of grief. 

A soft place to land is a moment of absolute joy like fire flies back east, watching children giggle as they play in the sprinklers.

A soft place to land is being present for sunrise or dusk.

A soft place to land is realizing your partners probably not going to change and then you realize her partner (me) is also probably not going to change and somehow making it work without snide comments, and a whole lot of acceptance.

A soft place to land is knowing it wasn’t so much that my dad left me, it was that he wanted to be with the love of his life. He wanted to make her his fruit plate to meet her every morning with a slice of raisin bread and some organic peanut butter on top.

A soft place to land is remembering my dad, rolling his eyes when your ex husband would sneak Carol (my stepmom) a Krispy Kreme doughnut, the sugar making him crazy because we knew that’s what could feed the cancer. And yet he had a Costco size bag of chocolate chips at my house. 

A soft place to land is realizing the most important person in my life was human. While he lived with angst and hurt, and that all his behavior the last 11 months of his life as fucked as it was really had nothing to do with me. That for years of control, compartmentalizing, people do have free will and people will do what they will do. Rarely having anything to do with us. 

 A soft place to land is knowing that my oldest for some reason when I kiss the top of his head when he’s sitting down because he’s so much taller than me smells like sawdust and woodshop and earth, just like my father did even though this kid makes music and beats. He hangs out with his friends and loves to cuddle his 13 1/2 pound dog. He is  nowhere near dirt, sawdust and yet he’s the sweetest reminder of my dad.

A soft place to land his learning that my 15 year old was greatly affected by my dad’s suicide, even though he says, he barely remembers him, and this sweet boy with his quick comebacks and often much older steadfast advice  makes me not feel so alone.

The soft place to land is showing up in a yoga class to teach something I’ve been doing for 13 years and having someone tell me that I made a difference or that they feel understood. Or when I look out at the students, everyone willing in a pose or moving through a flow as we do in the yoga community. I cherish that there is hope. There is community. Yes, a community is a soft place to land. 

A soft place to land is always always my head onto her chest even when I’m annoyed with her even when we’ve had a shit day and even when we’re at odds parenting together.

A soft place to land is that any night we go to sleep together she gives me a kiss on the shoulder, her hand on my hip. Always looking for a place where she can connect to me, knowing I tend to fade away, years of not feeling important and her overtures are simple, they are small and they work to keep me anchored to this earth. 

A soft place to land is my ex-husband’s, phone number still in my favorites, and slowly making their way back up to the top. 

A soft place to land is trusting my ex-husband, knowing he has integrity, and even though he gets a little shy and a little worried, because I am his ex-wife that he shows up more probably now more than he ever showed up before in parenting and sometimes friendship. We can have hard conversations about the kids and we can have hard conversations about the world.  And because he knew my dad so well he knows that once in a while I need to call him just for advice that I would have asked my Dad.  

A soft place to land is being able to write and hoping that your words make a difference. Hoping  people feel more included, less crazy that one more person decided to stay in this world and not take an early exit.

A soft place to land is living your life while finding yourself laughing at you,  finally learning to not take ourselves so seriously, no matter the trauma, the bonds, the friendships, and the craziness of this world.

A soft place to land is being able to be ourselves with no apology to be flooded to be loved, and to love others, like never before.