Day 14, Harbor

a poem a day

Friends,

Today’s word is harbor.

A harbor is a port of safety, a place of comfort, a place for a ship to escape choppy waters for a bit.

A harbor holds us.

Sometimes we harbor ourselves.

In the harbor is where we rest before we get back out onto the choppy waters. At the harbor, we find ourselves, feed ourselves, tend to our wounds, soak up the quiet before we step into the chaos again.

Harbor.

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Photo by Ravigopal Kesari on Unsplash

I have lived a life on the waves, and I’ve gotten used to the movement—
the constant here and there, the sunlight poring down over
shades of green and blue, poring down over every inch of me.
But it’s time for safe harbor, to steady this boat for a little while, to
find out exactly what kind of person I want to be out on those waves.

So I slowly enter, and at first, the stillness terrifies me, because who am
I without the constant struggle, without chaos, movement, harsh sunlight?
In the harbor, I find the shade and let my eyes soften for the first time in months,
let my limbs fall to my sides and rest, let my mind discontinue its formations
of worst-case-scenarios-just-in-case, let my heartbeat comfort me instead.

I don’t know how long I’ll stay here, in this cocoon of stillness, but I do know that
the moment I feel the need to escape, I’ll pause, recognizing that just because I
miss the constant movement of the waves doesn’t mean I must live in it constantly,
doesn’t mean I need the chaos to survive in this loud world that craves attention.

I turn that attention to the ground beneath my feet, to the food in my belly and
the quiet that has cloaked my body, just for a little while, just while I need it.
I am harboring myself, safely tethered to the good world that waits to feed me
until I am ready to go out again, to embark, to enter once more the chaos
with a heart that knows it is tenderly loved, deeply rooted, and eternally held.