Roots and Wings

I've heard it said that there are two important bequests parent can give their children. One is roots and the other is wings.

This weekend I realized how deep some of our roots can grow without out awareness. I went home with my friend this weekend to help her pack up her room so that her parents can move in a few months. Despite the fact that she does not live there anymore and was not intending to live at home over the next few years, it was still difficult for her to sort through the things and the memories. Although her parents moving does not mean she is losing her roots, they are being transplanted which is difficult.

At this point in my life, I'm finding it very hard to put down definite roots in any place or hard connections to too many people. My life is by no means unsettled, but it's not rooted in too many ways. I have roots in Aurora with my family and I've begun to put down roots at the L'arche communities in both London and Richmondhill. There have been places where I have put down roots and had to pull them up again which can be painful. I've left behind so much of what I had at Glem Mhor Camp for so many years, the attachement I developed to PYPS Toronto-Kinston synod and the shallow roots I placed at Huron College. I'm growing deeper, more mature roots there now, but putting down different roots isn't easier after destroying past attachments. It can be even harder.

It's easy for me to put down roots because I'm a rooted person. I like knowing there are things that won't change, that will always be there. It's harder each day to put down roots to both places and people because most of the people I have met recently are not going to stay in any one place for the next few years. It's difficult to get attached to a house and have to move again because our lease has run out, or develop a great friendship and have the person go away to travel or complete their schooling. As much as I desire to put down deep roots that can't be moved, at this point I'll settle for shallow roots that don't hurt so much to move.

While this is the time when roots are hard to put down and let grow, it's also when our wings begin to strengthen. It's almost like a butterfly trying to get out of its cocoon. University is the first chance I've really had to stretch my wings. And I kind of like it. Somedays it's frightening because my wings are not yet strong enough to support the flights that I want to take, but I'm content in the knowledge that soon they will be. They just need to get some more muscle on them.

It can be more frightening for my wings to be acknowledged than my roots. Roots are less complicated. They are always there and can be used to support you all the time. Wings are more complicated. In order to make your wings grow, sometimes you have to fall. Sometimes you do have to fail at what you try. You have to risk going too far in order to find out how far you can truly go. Some days that's the easiest thing in the world, but other days I can't stand the ensuing bruises when I fall, again, or the hurt when my heart breaks just one more time. I want my wings because the thought is thrilling beyond all belief. To be able to fly on my own would be fantastic. It's when I'm soaring above the trees and seeing the incredible view that I most poignantly feel my roots and come back close to the ground.

Is that a choice we have to make though? Do we have to choose between soaring and settled? I don't think so. Or I guess I hope not. I don't think we were created in order to be forced into one or the other. We can have both because that's what we were created to claim. Both our roots and our wings.