Inspired by the picture book Trini’s Big Leap, The Big Leap is a home for stories about people who discover new strengths—physical, emotional, intellectual, artistic, social—at home and in their communities. In short, this is a collection of stories from people who take big leaps and have something to say about the ride.

Pack

Minneapolis. Ten months after our first move, fourteen months after the wedding. “I’ve been really unhappy here,” he said, or something like it. He was depressed, not adjusting, even though everything he’d come here for was in place. This time, the cure for his discontent was a return to grad school back in his home state.

His announcement came just as I had begun to settle in.

No. The voice came, swift and calm as always. No. In a whisper, close to the ear, unequivocal. No. Monosyllabic. No. The voice I’d ignored right before I said I do.

Stay, it said. Let him go if he wants to. But let go.

Stay. Here.

            “You’re really unhappy?” I asked. Acquiescing had become a habit, easier than fighting.

            “Yeah.”

            “OK, then. You get yourself together for school. I’ll take care of the move.” Make-It-Work-Girl, What-I-Want-Doesn’t-Really-Matter-Girl, to the rescue.

            In the weeks that followed, I went through the motions: Booking the moving truck. Emailing the landlord. Searching for a new home. The only thing I couldn’t do was pack.

In tears of quiet fury, I started assembling boxes and pitching in random stuff without regard for what might break.

Stay.

Sob and pitch…Sob and pitch.

Connecticut. A year later. I had stopped sleeping. I had come to embody fear. I was stiff and twitchy, and my hair grayed rapidly, exposing the frizzy and tangled wiring that was my nervous system. Work felt impossible. I felt impossible.

I started to imagine his palpable anger and intermittent verbal attacks as something sharp lodged in between my ribs. Even though it never materialized, my spleen believed in the steel point and edge of a knife. And the psychic danger of ever-present brooding and contempt made it too hot to sleep. Me, my fear, him, his anger. There was no room in the bed for all of us.

Finally, after months, real sleep. Dreamless, exhausting, and black, but still. I sat up and listened in the dawn light. For the first time in a year, the voice returned:

Pack.

I got out of bed and started reassembling the few boxes still left from before. Books were easiest; I arranged them alphabetically by author in neat stacks. I cleared space on a table, began rolling bubble wrap and tissue paper around the rose-tinted crystal we never used, a gift from my aunt. Tiny parcels, protected. Prepared to start over again. Alone.

 Meg Ryan

HEADING FOR THE OCEAN: A BIG LEAP

Having health issues, I was fragile, rail-thin, with only enough strength for the basics. Six years earlier, during the divorce, my youngest child and I moved three hours north. Two years later, he left Ohio for the University of Montana.

My daughter had come up for a visit. We were in the kitchen when I spoke, one too many times, of longing for the ocean.

“Go, or stop talking about it,” she told me.

“How could you say that?” I lashed out. She knew my fears, and history, of getting lost while driving. We argued hard, with tears, before hugging and making up.

Four months later, I headed for North Carolina to visit a friend, still with no sense of direction—and no GPS. Yes, I got lost, but, as my youngest son promised would happen, I got found—with the kind help of strangers.

My kids were ecstatic. They mailed gifts to my friend’s house. It was a life-changing, joyous sixtieth birthday, with a sand cake and shell candles.

I still thank my daughter for that kick. Anything less wouldn’t have been enough. Help can hurt—at first. But possibility is a healer.

The adventures since then could fill a book! 

Patti Mallett                        

Frankie hangs out: A Trini story

Frankie Marvel was truly a marvel at adding twos and threes. Sometimes he would count past all ten fingers on his two hands. Sometimes he would count Trini’s somersaults and the number of blocks in William’s tower and the number of shoes on Keisha’s feet. But there was no way he was ever going to trust himself to hang from the monkey bars in the gym his father took him to. That seemed like a ridiculous way to spend his time, and besides, he had been born with skinny arms.

“You can’t say you can’t if you don’t try,” Keisha could be heard telling him.

“Numbers are more interesting from up high,” William would say.

“This is silly,” Trini once said. “Don’t you think so?”

“Nope,” Frankie Marvel said. Every. Single. Time.

One word. One syllable. One boy. One wasn’t a very interesting number.

If Frankie didn’t try, he could not fall. If Frankie didn’t try, he could not fail. If Frankie didn’t try, he would never laugh the way the others laughed when they hung from their long arms, short arms, wide arms, thin arms and swung.

Frankie watched. Frankie waited. Frankie did his marvelous math. And then one day Frankie decided: I think I’ll take a turn. His friends gathered around. They counted one two three. They lifted Frankie to the bar, and he reached, and his skinny arms were strong skinny arms, and four five six seven eight, the others counted, then nine ten eleven twelve, they went on, then, “Wow, Wow, Wow,” Frankie said, because suddenly his world was a whole lot more interesting than it had ever been.

Beth Kephart