Close in Step

 

Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,

start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take…

David Whyte

 

Sometimes, most time, the hardest thing about reaching a goal is taking the next step, the  “close in step” towards it.   We want to leap, jump, fly up to the top of the mountain not take the first hard step up the steep slope.  We want to write a novel but are unable to take the first step to put a paragraph on a blank page. We want to push up into a backbend but can’t get in close to open the tight shoulder blades. Is it the fear of failure that stops us? The fear that our “close in step” is so very far away from where we want to be that we may never get there if we must start from where we are? 

 

What if the next close in step takes us through a place we did not want to go?  Up close we are likely to see where we are weak, confused, and vulnerable. Taking the close in step requires the courage to see ourselves more clearly, to come in close to how we really are.

 

Taking next close in step means forgoing every other step we might have taken at that moment.  We realize how little freedom we have in life, how there will only be so much we can do meaningfully.  In every life so many dreams must be left aside to reach the one drawing us closer.  Something must be left aside to take the close in step.  We will wonder if it is worth it as if this worth could be measured ahead of time even though the outcomes remain uncertain and incomplete.

 

And yet if were to push past the close in step towards the finish line something would be lost.  It would be like moving society ahead  - new cars, more money, faster technology – by letting all the frail, vulnerable, ill, and aging fend for themselves.  (Which is kind of what we do…) When we push past the close in step, we dismember the parts of ourselves that need the most care and encouragement.  Prizing only some parts retraumatizes those parts that have been most neglected. The obstacles to moving towards a deeply longed for goal come from these parts that do not want to be neglected any longer. Getting closer to them in the close in step makes us less afraid of failing or failing to be farther along.