That inspired moment,
the moment that seemed to stop in time,
when there were so many things I wanted to say, yet,
none of them would come out.
Silence stole the spotlight,
but there was a shared comfort in that quiet.
I realized,
in that muted moment,
when the silence was deafening,
that I didn’t need to say anything.
My words needed no sound.
The emotion in my reticence spoke volumes.
And in that breath of repose,
everything I wanted to tell you,
you already knew.
Most of us are hyper-critical of ourselves. I am certainly guilty of that crime. We are truly our own worst enemy. We over-analyse the most minute details about ourselves and never give a second thought to the perception that others may have of us – a perception that may be the polar opposite of how we see ourselves but much closer to the truth.
We have become a society of comparison. We gauge our success, or perceived failure, by how we think we measure up to those around us. We judge ourselves by their opinion and not by the standards we set for ourselves. What we fail to take into consideration is the amount of effort we put into each day by just being ourselves and how difficult that journey can be. It takes a person with a strong moral compass and courage of conviction to follow the direction in which they feel will allow them to be the most comfortable and to genuinely be themselves.
Too often we allow our actions and our decisions to be swayed by outside forces. We ignore that little voice inside our head and we succumb to the white noise around us that berates us for those actions. But that initial behavior represents our true self. Those nuances of our personality are what set us apart from every other person on this planet. Those are the things worth cherishing. Those subtleties are the little details that friends and family will hold onto long after you have left this Earth for your next journey.
It would be easy to conform into a stereotype that you feel would be welcomed by society, to make decisions that would be accepted by the masses, but you would be doing yourself a disservice if those choices were not right for you. Hold true to the things that make you who you are and know that the important people in your life appreciate the choices that you make. We all need a little daily affirmation – because you are good enough, you are smart enough, and, doggone it, people like you!
Faint whispers.
Rustling leaves.
Movements in the bush.
As I strain to hear them,
I know they long to be seen,
if only for just a moment.
They are the ghosts of my past,
the purveyors of my future,
and the keepers of my secrets.
They linger in the spaces
between shadow and light.
Their consciousness
meets my curiosity,
and I strain to see their light
in my twilight vision.
Their dance
is my celebration.
Their presence
is my comfort.
They seek my truth.
They are my warriors, my army,
and they will always
be the reason I smile in my sleep.
I remember the moment.
It isn’t hazy or clouded, but clear in my memory.
Your eyes met mine, your hand touched my shoulder
and you curled me into your embrace.
The day had been frivolous.
The sky was untouched by clouds
and our laughter permeated the wind.
We sat with the sun soaking into our skin.
We allowed the true beauty of life to envelop us
and we just enjoyed living.
That moment drew me to you.
I saw you as you are.
I saw you in the moments you are happiest,
the moments where nothing else existed.
I was intoxicated by your ability to escape from the shackles of the real world,
to let life drive while you took the back seat,
able to enjoy the ride.
I remember the moment.
That moment will thrive in my memory.
It taught me about your passions and wants.
It reintroduced my wishes and desires.
And it made me know what love could look like.
His grip was strong,
but tender,
and that’s how he held me,
firm in his grasp, but tender in his emotion.
But it wasn’t just how he held me,
it’s how he saw me.
His look was beyond flesh,
it looked past imperfections.
He just saw me,
for who I was,
under the shroud of my physical form.
He looked into me and,
as his hand held mine,
in that frozen moment,
I became lost in him.
His grip was strong, but tender,
and in that grasp,
now lies my heart.
Drawn by its depth,
silenced by its beauty
and amazed by its complexity.
The perfect evening sky
is painted by the swaying branches
that continue to brush blue into the waning day.
A cool breeze
carries the scent of the lilacs.
Dusk approaches,
but day fights for its last moments
before the fireflies seize the night.
Leaves dance in the wind,
laughing as they are tickled by the currents of spring.
A lone butterfly
floats on the updrafts,
silently raging against the dying of the light.
The sun pulls up the blanket of the horizon,
golds and yellows caress the trees one last time
and the day succumbs
to the sleep of night.
I’m a cloud watcher. I can only sunbathe for so long before I feel like I will spontaneously combust (thank you blood pressure medication) so I move my overheated body under the canopy of my deck umbrella and watch the clouds go by. They never cease to amaze me. Whether it is the pattern in their wisps or the shapes I see in their billowy contours, I can cloud gaze for hours.
I have not been able to watch the clouds lately, however, because the sky has been a solid, monochromatic grey. Perhaps because I am so accustomed to looking beyond what I really see, recently I have been seeing faces in the strangest locations.
This morning I rolled over, still shaking off the remnants of my slumber, and faced my closet. A shirt that was at the top of the laundry basket was piled in such a way that the aged face of a man stared back at me from the shirt’s folded elbow. For some reason, I couldn’t avert his keen focus on me and I stared back with the same intensity.
He seemed familiar to me. And this is not the first time I have discovered a genial visage in a random place. It happens more frequently than I should probably admit.
I have since discovered that this phenomenon has a name – Pareidolia. There are many people, like me, who have the ability to see faces or animals in a benign object. An extreme example is the woman who sold a 10-year old grilled cheese on eBay for $28,000.00 because it supposedly had the image of the Virgin Mary on it. Some people see a cinnamon bun below, others see Mother Teresa.
Whatever the reasoning behind this strangely named anomaly, the writer in me enjoys the visits from these odd characters. I’m sure one day they will insert themselves into a story line somewhere along my writing journey and I will be grateful for their intrusion into my reality.
Time for audience participation – cinnamon bun or Mother Teresa?
I held you in a dream.
You became a part of me,
as if my body never ended
and you were merely
an extension of me.
And though I felt like I was floating away,
you were there
to pull me back to you,
to hold me in my slumber,
to keep me in your embrace,
to never let me go.
**I saw a video of these otters slowly drifting apart and coming back together. They inspired this poem.
My curiosity ignites.
My burning question is nourished
purely by the fuel of my deep desire
to know,
to experience,
to feel the brush of romance
on the canvas that is my skin.
My heart burns
with a yearning
to find you.
~~
polysyllabic profundities 