We’re one, but we’re not the same.

We get to carry each other, carry each other…

~U2

We get to. Not we’ve got to. We get to.

It reminds me of that cloyinglypoignantlycloying story about Jesus on the beach. How come there’s only one set of footprints in some parts?

But what about when we carry each other?

There are no footprints because when we carry each other we fly.

We fly because we carry each other.

I know a famous G.K. Chesterton quote by way of Alan Watts:

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.

If you carry me, well… I’ll carry you.
Sometimes we take turns.
Sometimes we work together to carry someone else.
Sometimes we carry each other.
Pull me up by your bootstraps.
I’ll pull you up by my bootstraps.

We were sitting on our couch on a Saturday night like we’ve been doing forever and will be doing forever.

Saturday nights and we talk. Sometimes I get lost in my thoughts and I can talk at you… past you… like I’m more thinking out loud and the listener happens to be there, catching my drift. You are always so tolerant of my flights of fancy… you let me spin my little storywebs of connections and meanderings and ideas.

But not tonight.

Tonight we’re talking to each other. Listening to each other. We’ve been doing that so much. We used to slip into roles, depending on the context.

But now we’re a perfect yin yang. We complement — we just fit. Words pour forth and fit the mold of each other’s mind.

Ever since that dreadful summer day you haven’t felt complete. You’ve been nursing a wound. You’ve been minding a darker part of your soul and you haven’t been able to see just how much light and hope you contain, you provide. But I’ve been minding that lighthouse for you.

As I’ve been the care-taker of your beacon you’ve been lighting my way.

That’s when it came to me. We carry each other. We get to carry each other.

I’m not who I am without you. I would never want to be.

And when we carry each other, we fly. There are no footprints.

When we carry each other we fly.

I fly because I carry you while you lift me weightless lift me forever transcendent.

Bring me down? Tire me out? Don’t take this away from me.

I get to carry you. Carry me. Carry you. Carrymecarryyoucarrymecarryoumeyoumeyoumeyou

We get to.