What happens if I stop moving?

Questions I can’t answer

 Carina Dieringer

I’ve always needed to feel like I was flying. For most of my life, I rode horses. When we, the one being formed when horse and rider synchronize perfectly, launched into the air over a jump, for a brief moment the world became real. The mirage of past and future dissipated into one breathing moment. That feeling can be anywhere if you chase it hard enough.

I have found it in stone cracks and crevices, wheels that dizzy down hills, fear, the buzz of everyday unpredictability, the swing of closed fists, defiance. Even falling makes way for the blunt-force freedom of flight.

When I am seated on the edge of danger is when life wraps me in her love: dirt under my fingernails, iron in my mouth, the strawberry sweet sting of scraped knees.

I know the question that follows.

What happens if I stop moving?

I did, once. Worms crawled beneath my skin and my feet syruped to the floor under the cold weight of gravity. Loneliness ate at my bloodstream. Metal and iron grated my flesh.

I found nowhere to turn as the unmoving cycle of routine encased me in a coffin and pounded the nails through my skull.

Yet even so, a scarier question remains.

What happens if I can’t stop moving?

Perhaps I will lose pieces of myself along the way. Perhaps I will become so wrapped up in the journey that I will forget the destination. Perhaps I will forget who I am without my ears ringing and head pounding.

The most incredible horse I ever knew refused to stop running. When she couldn’t figure out how to grow wings, her hunger transformed into an endless gallop that grew faster with every spiral around the arena. I threw myself off of her those times. (the ground wasn’t so harsh when I planned to be there).

Now, I again wonder—do I need to jump off before it’s too late?