Читать книгу Lean Forward Into Your Life - Mary Anne Radmacher - Страница 8

Lean forward into your life. Indeed. Often I embrace this instruction and put my shoulder to the moment. But certainly not always. There are times when, if I were to lean forward, all I would do is fall over. The roots of the word “despair” can be found in old French—a pairing of “down from” and “to hope”: to fall down from hope. When I am not leaning forward into my life that is why. Because I am busy falling down from hope. Sometimes the ship of life is pitching so viciously that the best action I can muster is to just sit down and hang on. The storm subsides. I stand up. I look around. I lean forward a little.

My chiropractor, Dr. Colleen McDonough, was helping me recover from a moment in which I had rapidly leaned backward. I'd stepped backward, while walking my dog, into a recessed planting area in the sidewalk. I snapped something in my back. My doctor was being attentive to the details of my life while working to correct the problem. “Now how's that writing going?” she asked. “That book you're working on—what's it called? Fall Forward into Life?”

I laughed so hard. The irony of my chiropractor getting the title of my book so wrong and yet so right, struck me as howlingly funny. When I stopped laughing I told her the correct title. She observed that I more frequently seem to leap forward into my life. A running leap, she modified. With your dog along on a leash. Leap. Lean. It's just one letter difference.

A pilot would tell you that a seemingly insignificant lean of a wing will dramatically alter the direction of the plane. Perhaps if a bird could speak it would share that, with the right wind, a little ruffle of a feather may change the way of its flight.

There are many reasons you lean forward on any given day. They are all perfect metaphors for this book. When you're trying to see something better, you lean toward it. When you are listening to someone and can barely hear, you lean in. When the really exciting part of a basketball game comes, you lean forward in your seat. When you're trying to catch, to see, to listen to the best bits—you lean forward.

Lean forward into your life . . . catch the best bits and the finest wind. Just tip your feathers in flight a wee bit and see how dramatically that small lean can change your life.