Fear resides on both sides, in the direct sun and in the borderless shadows; the light, however, competes with mine, so my soul still remains largely unexposed.
I unzip my skin behind the bushes and dip into the sea of all that I am and all that I have yet to be,
a flame underwater, inextinguishable, no longer chained to the illusion of drowning; I dive deeper in belief of my self and arise, wet and glowing.
In my new skin, a more comfortable fit, I swirl together the sun and shadows as I dance, and the flickering upon my upturned face reveals another transformation taking place within.
That unexpected drop we don’t see coming. It’s one thing when you are watching your footing, placing your soles carefully around the eggshells, having been conditioned, trained, skilled, at moving around in this on-guard, defensive way. It’s another when you’ve just started to have confidence in the spring in your step upon trusted ground. I was outdoors, in my favorite place, when it happened this last time.
A trap pre-set by a predator disguised as a friend. Another very unexpected fall. No problem. I’m used to it. I know what to do. It’s all very logical. Except when I go to grab onto the root to begin the climb, it opens another hole. I unexpectedly drop again. I reach, I lift myself, I lift myself, I reach for the wrong root again and another hole opens… I don’t understand these. They come from deep within my own self. These were not set by him. There is no logic; I’ve tried every pattern. Eventually, I make it out.
And then another pit sends me plummeting.
I’m thinking about these pitfalls today, sitting upon a rock in a favorite dress on a beautiful day, revisiting the scene, the trap pre-set especially for me. I find myself thinking the all-too-familiar question for each of us, so universal, so personal: why me?
I honestly do feel I should have been spared by my higher power. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve done my time. With Trauma. But what sense of entitlement and special treatment is that? Not to mention the whole free-will clause which others can use to interfere with my own hard work and desires.
So I do now reflect on the possible reasons. Does God have yet another lesson for me to learn, yet another trial to overcome? How strong does He want me to be?! And why?… When I think of this, I do not feel like a victim; there is very little woe is me. I actually get a bit excited that He is preparing me for big things. Like I am a chosen one. And if ever I were to be in training or to serve, I would definitely want it to be for Him! I feel empowered. I feel an ego I never thought I had. I always thought I was selfless to a fault.
I did it. I think. Again. I’ve lost, yet won. Are you proud of me, God?
I think, too, about how much I have control of and how much I don’t. I know how we react is everything, our miseries often self-induced, self-perpetuated, the way we keep ourselves trapped and prisoners; we look down sometimes and see the cuffs and chains are unlocked, and we scramble to re-secure them. Why?
Is it all fear?
If so, are we really trusting God is with us, sees what is ahead? We cannot get there if we keep re-locking ourselves when He keeps setting us free.
My past is my past. I have freed myself from it. I must shake the dungeon dust fully off. Perhaps that is the purpose of these new wings.
I feel the breeze of your and His love…
Thank you for always believing in me.
I suppose with wings, these pitfalls can no longer sink me; I’ll keep my eyes forward in these skies and focused on the portals to my dreams.
It’s been sunny and seventies, and the seasons have not so much been confused as they have been seemingly just leisurely mingling, amused, some stalling, some joyfully letting go; nothing in the South rushes though.
Like melting cubes of ice in tea, we take it sweet and slow down here. It tickles me pink to have the mix sprinkling personal messages so clear.
Today started differently, gray with a bit of nip in the air. Certain trees partaking in autumn are almost now bare, covering the patio in a bland blanket over stone, which made the flowers I did not grow even more the focal point of my windowed soul.
I smiled for how they have become so deeply rooted in my journey. Marking my heart’s pages, so many petals and leaves held so dearly, imprinting with their colors and scents my most powerful untold stories.
Fissures shift, the inner lifts, though I wish to keep it enclosed. Exposed to the elements becomes my soul. The tears rise and flow.
When the painquake subsides, there are less toxins inside. I suppose it is nature’s way of eliminating the accumulating waste, that which we bury in false deaths, that which we hide beneath the surface, a sort of protection and procrastination of that which we cannot bear in the moment to face.
Two-faced are we all. How are you? Good, thanks. Why do we ask that question in passing? Too often fake. How am I? Probably actually similar to how you are especially in the way that we guard the answer. Brief eye contact. Continue walking. If only we acknowledged anything. Hands on phones, hands of clocks. Bombs inside. Tick. Tock.
Fissures by nature are meant to be breaks. Down is mine. Again. No brakes.
Not a fall but an opening. An involuntary wound-seeping. Weeping.
My inner, risen now. What will you do with what’s come out?
Sunny and 70s this weekend in northwest Florida but with enough seasonal variety to get to experience some autumn colors alongside the re-flowering trees. I meant to go to the ocean but ended up staying in my yard. It’s just so quiet and peaceful here, and that’s really what I needed most this weekend, especially since our house guests are out of town. It’s late Sunday afternoon now; I’m still in my pajamas and still procrastinating starting my schoolwork…. maybe after this blog post on the patio…
I thought I’d let you into my head a bit, since there is never a dull moment there. 🙂 This morning as the sun rose and dried the raindrops from the leaves, I enjoyed some nature photography. In my backyard. 🙂
A friend recently asked what kind of camera I use. Ummmm, an outdated and malfunctioning iPhone (8) and whatever photo editing app it came with. My old Canon is no longer working, though I really do need to try harder to revive it. I’m not one to spend money, and I hate updates and changing what I’m familiar and comfortable with. My daughter has the pro gear (and newer phone), but I’ve yet to borrow or learn it. I have an inherited camera too I’ve been meaning to play with. So me and my on-its-last-leg iPhone out back this morning….
If you know anything about me, you know it would be the wildflowers and white flowers that would call to me the most. From inside, on my way to make morning coffee (after going back to sleep earlier since I woke with a headache), the familiar white wildflowers drew me out. I loved that they were still blooming and wanted to capture them against the autumn-leaves background. There is such pure and soulful beauty I find in white blossoms, so this was my main therapy after my emotionally-turbulent week. Ahhhh…
I find nature the most therapeutic for me when I focus on the details, the tinier the better. I suppose that makes sense. When I’m spiraling out of control from an emotional trigger that trips a mine from my traumatic, buried past, the one who knows me best (I’ve recently caught on to this..) tells me something very specific in our conversation, a unique detail. I tend to focus on it. I tend to forget the rest for a moment or two. It’s a grasp for me, something to hold onto. Sometimes, that’s all that’s needed to stop the free fall. I focus on the folds in petals, the almost-evaporated drops from last night’s (all-too-coincidentally-metaphoric) rain, the tiniest bright stars in the unfurled center. It centers me. Again.
This one entranced me the most, like a beautiful ballet, its story performed without words but deeply felt…
Then there’s simply the beauty of autumn’s bright leaves, which I do not take for granted living in the South.
In just about every subject I frame in my lens, I also find a story or lesson. I begin my autumn adventure with the nest in the nook of my eucalyptus tree. This tree is not the mother of these leaves, but then again, home is sometimes found, and families can be made outside of genes, and both of these can save a soul.
(Here is the eucalyptus’ biological offspring:)
Next, as tends to happen, I notice and go out of my way to admire and showcase the beauty in the imperfect. I chose this leaf to be the star today.
I’m sure the ones who were more “whole” and less “marred” were confused. Like with flowers and seashells, I find the most powerfully-moving stories in the subjects that many would overlook or toss back, reject. We are all imperfect, though; we all have our scars, and with each, a very personal story, usually untold. Yet how similar, I’m sure, our hidden fears and pains are. The light seems to find all of us equally though, as a saving, nonjudgmental love.
This leads me also to respect the shadows. This bright red evoked a somber mood. I paused a while to pay homage.
This next green leaf intrigued me so! Among the astonishing inner workings, a very distinct marking gave my imagination the lead in metaphorical hypotheses formation: an internal imaging picture revealing the disease or alien or parasite inside; a tattoo (and what does it symbolize?); a birthmark; a branding; an astrological sign? Victim, chosen savior, scarred warrior? Its emblem is seared into my mind’s eye.
Nearby, another attention capturer, the decay in such stark contrast to the green stem. A charred lung having always been fed plenty of oxygen. Self-asphyxiation? Leaving or returning to life? Maybe the later stages of the disease above? Open back up the valve to your heart! Choose to receive the love! (I told you there’s never a dull moment in my mind…)
In this next one, I find the bittersweet. The sun’s rays have found this one and are comfortingly drying the pool of tears. Such a tender and touching healing story, especially since the leaf has detached from its life source. Perhaps the rays are the forgiveness before death, all amends made before the soul leaves the body to be lifted. Is there anything left unspoken in your own heart today?…
Don’t worry, I’ve saved the most lighthearted for last! 🙂 Here we have the strawberry or the rose (shhhh…don’t let it hear you say its a leaf!). We can really be whatever we choose to be, can we not? This one made me smile. Now I could manipulate the leaves to create such a capture, but when I find it naturally so, it makes it so much better.
And there you have it: a glimpse of what it’s like to be in Laura’s head when far away in the nearness of nature. I’d like to stay lost forever. I don’t think I’d miss the world. Wherever I go though, I promise to always send you rays of light, reflected with my lenses. ❤
Over the years, I’ve collected the best fragments from the jagged breaks of the past, revisiting the scenes after the immediate threats have into ashes passed.
When the sun faithfully returns, each ray seems to gently lead, reflecting in intermittent beams, to rebuild resilient dreams,
refracted off each of these gorgeous shards of glass. I add to these, the heartifacts unearthed from avalanche
and dug up from old spots, buried for protection, washed and polished rocks diversifying my unified vision.
In dress pockets, I tuck into shadows the reflections resurrected, reunite them with the rays as I sentimentally deconstruct them,
assembling a mosaic stained-glass arboretum to grow from pains and grief a new garden of suncatchers and walk among the rainbows into a new and beautiful future.
a work in progress perhaps no one should be for to simply be oneself should happen effortlessly it would seem
it’s work for me though to attempt to undo the disease seeds enemy-planted deep that choke the bloom
contaminating the roots robbing nutrients always pulling at upward movement
i grow my colors lift my face to the sun drink the falling waters offer pollen to everyone
yet i keep coming undone keep feeling invisible tugs
so i work to break free from that which i cannot see that has this grip on me
and little by little with each sinless absolution i sense each time another parasitical root is loosened
directly by my higher power and the words sinking in from finally believing my true-lover
feeling lighter is the way to the self i have begun to realize
to remove the shackles of the world and psyche to return the soul to the sky
Hilltop
It’s true, I’m blooming. I hope you can see: I am blossoming because your love has been seeded in me, and upward is the only direction I can go when these internal whispers of yours hush the world so ours are the only voices I hear when the storms return raging from those traumatic years. Time need not be turned back: unraveling these knots of old patterns, we’re perfecting with practice. I will do more than hold on for with your patience, I am remembering more quickly that this is the present, and I am nestled safely in the nearness of you upon the hillside with the endless view of anywhere I wish to go whilst bringing with me my found, forever home.
I suppose somewhere along the way, this became about me, this once person conditioned to inwardly mistreat, neglect, bury prematurely at sea,
too busy keeping them afloat in puddles, sacrificing my soul for others,
in the lows between lowers in that life unstable, vows before God to remain (abusive) spouse faithful,
the escape-clause contingencies blurred, repercussions lingering in the years after,
children ten years apart, and always children, I keep on giving, Silverstein tree down to the trunk, instead of remaining to be sat upon, I leave my roots to carry on,
re-sprouting from acorns and seeds to reach the end of land as a sunflower, brazen yet desperate, in the sand to be plucked by a youthful hand
and sprinkled into the surf for the mermaids to collect and bring to the site of where I left myself and resurrect
from Davy Jones’ Locker the Heart of the Sea still alive in its keeper: me.
The ducks and swans gather to greet at the pond where I used to weep.
Donned now in floral dresses and locks long enough to dance freely with the breeze, (he always said neither looked good on me…) the reflection I see is another plot twist in my ongoing story
with an ending yet to be written but full of God’s golden glory, His daughter’s strength ever-growing.
Somewhere along the way, somehow this did become about me. Another struggle lifted, another soulful healing.
In the setting sun, I reflect upon the journey and look so forward to the fulfilling of my legacy.
I will never drown, for you can only hold me down so long, years but moments in the eternity of dawn.
Hope unconditionally floats from the buoyancy of love.
This is my story, long overdue to be self-sung.
I actually do like to sing those soulful songs. (He always changed the station if I even began to hum…)
A poetic letter to me sent upon a wave and star to reach through time, back to where you are…
This “he” of your fantasies receives your Little Red Balloon and your whispers to be delivered by Moon.
He will continuously clean your mirrors until you see as he does, all of your beauty clearly.
You will weave wedding wildflowers in your hair and feel the wind whip freeingly through the despair.
You will radiate in dresses and feel feminine, barefoot and free upon grass and sand.
Your wavy locks will be teased by the breeze. Your hand outstretched for a companion will receive.
Your heart reopened will be filled to overflowing, exceeding your dreams with God-blessed reality.
Your voice in song will again reach the heavens, your loquaciousness endlessly received with eager anticipation.
That voice in your head and grip around your growth will fall away as he convinces you to love yourself.
Your faith will grow as anticipated; God will see you through as He always has. He knows always what is ahead. He will deliver love if you cut the thread…
You will not give your whole life to this verbally-abusive “man.” Soon you will be filled with enough courage to act. You will come to realize those decades of hurtful words were lies all along; you will come to know your worth.
Who you once long ago hoped instead you were will appear as unwavering truths in every mirror.
Laura Denise 