Lift

Cover of Lift, by Kelly Corrigan

While corresponding with a friend and colleague this week, and in the midst of updates about various trials and tribulations, my friend KB offered this helpful and insightful comment:

"I read something in a book last week called “Lift”. The author is a mom who faced cancer etc. She talks about a discussion with a friend who is a hang glider as he talks about trying to catch thermal winds and the risks and dangers of turbulence. When she asks him why you wouldn't just avoid the turbulence he responds saying “Turbulence is the only way to get altitude, to get lift. Without turbulence, the sky is just a big blue hole. Without turbulence, you sink.” I thought it was a great analogy for life. The turbulence seems to elevate the soul and bring out qualities in people that they may never have discovered without it. I know that we will not escape a little turbulence in our lives…I just pray we find and face it with the grace and dignity." --KB 

Some people say that my hobby of long distance motorcycling is too risky. They say, "Why not just drive, or fly? These options are much safer than riding!" 

Perhaps driving or flying is safer, but to my mind, the calculated risk of riding is worth the heightened experience that come with it. When riding, I am not just moving my body from A to B. I am stirring my soul.  

You must set your own thresholds for risk, based on your tolerance. I know what works for me and I am not claiming that I have this question answered for everyone. As for me, I'll ride!

What stirs your soul?

Are you interested in more information about Kelly Corrigan or her book, Lift?

http://www.amazon.com/Lift-Kelly-Corrigan/dp/B003XU7VN8

"No matter when and why this comes to your hands, I want to put down on paper how things started with us."

Written as a letter to her children, Kelly Corrigan's Lift is a tender, intimate, and robust portrait of risk and love; a touchstone for anyone who wants to live more fully. In Lift, Corrigan weaves together three true and unforgettable stories of adults willing to experience emotional hazards in exchange for the gratifications of raising children.

Lift takes its name from hang gliding, a pursuit that requires flying directly into rough air, because turbulence saves a glider from "sinking out." For Corrigan, this wisdom--that to fly requires chaotic, sometimes even violent passages--becomes a metaphor for all of life's most meaningful endeavors, particularly the great flight that is parenting.

Corrigan serves it up straight--how mundanely and fiercely her children have been loved, how close most lives occasionally come to disaster, and how often we fall short as mothers and fathers. Lift is for everyone who has been caught off guard by the pace and vulnerability of raising children, to remind us that our work is important and our time limited.

... Lift is a meditation on the complexities of a woman's life, ... [Lift is] boisterous and generous, a book readers can't wait to share.

"Although we've never met, I love Kelly Corrigan like a friend. Her work gives me a rich sense of intimacy with someone who is full of life and hard-fought wisdom. She's hilarious, tender-hearted, tough, loyal, wild, and screwed-up--like all the coolest women I know." --Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird and Traveling Mercies