Wings Mid-Fall

The Playground

I did not change for the sake of changing. I got clear. I tested. Then I leapt — and the summer that followed would not have happened if the first plans had held.

I began the summer in Texas. Twelve months of looking at what had to move. I was ready for new height and a new horizon. What I was not ready to do was shuffle the furniture and call it a life.

Change for the sake of changing is just restlessness in better shoes. I had to get clear on what actually needed to move. Face it with both eyes open. Run a small test. Then — only then — take the full leap with a glad heart, trusting that the change itself is what grows the wings mid-fall.

When the Good Plan Dies

It was the summer of my life. More people. More rooms. More souls who altered the temperature of a day in the time it took to drink the coffee. Almost none of it was the itinerary I had written.

A couple of really good plans fell through at the last minute. Every single time, what arrived after was better than the first option — and quieter on the nerves.

I am a particular planner. I weigh a decision until it has a spine. I like to have what I need in hand before I put a foot on the next front step. I have moved enough times to be good at the choreography.

This time the plan collapsed before I left. I went anyway.

I leapt without a net. Without a name in the new city. Without the language. I did not leap empty. I leapt carrying every tool the last decade had already put in my hands — enough to land soft enough to survive. I have watched people jump on blind faith alone. I have watched people jump on will and refuse any help from the Divine. Mid-fall I felt the difference. I recalibrated while the air was still moving.

A sticky landing, and a blast

It was sticky. It was bumpy. I survived it. I also had a blast.

The way through was opening — not a polite inch. All the way. I let the whole person show up. I was not reckless. I also refused to make myself suffer for the privilege of being here.

I kept the routine I had already built for the self, the spirit, and the work. Strict enough to hold. Open enough to drag a block of time and drop it where the day actually was. Sunday I name the focus for each compartment. When that window opens, I work that window. Not a cage. A tray of hours I can move.

Professional does not only mean another certificate. It can be mentorship given or received. An hour with a podcast that is actually about the work. Or a quiet review of my own week. The compartment is the same. The content can change.

Finding the current

In the decompression hours I talked to whoever would talk back. I wanted the island, not a postcard of the island. Heritage was not the filter. Presence was.

The Egyptian behind the Turkish coffee, on the future of online finance. The woman from Mayagüez who taught me tahini and the history of her town. Twin builders who had left a smaller island for San Juan and found side gigs instead of a contract. Women at the craft market and their local remedies. Men over a dominoes board — one of my favorite number games.

Tourists too. A man from Chicago with a beat and a rhyme; we went deep. A mathematician who loves numbers the way I do, from a field that is not mine. A couple in business who rearranged how I saw myself in fifteen minutes.

Every one of them was worth the second.

Remembering to Breathe

Every challenge arrived like a wave that wanted the whole horizon. Then I breathed. Then I accepted the exact thing in front of me. From there I could see why it had shown up, and what would move it.

Fear clouds the room and turns a decision into a flinch. Doubt chooses the couch and calls it wisdom. Pain from an old year will keep you looping the same two streets. A breath is not poetry. It is how I get back in the hour before I correct course.

The first plans were allowed to die. The summer was not.

— Angel