I woke up at 4am crying, sleeping in the dining room under a shadowed chandelier named Sophia. She’s white a flowery and beautiful and is what I would look like if I were a chandelier. I was freezing. It’s like gangrene – one part of me gets infected and I’m done for – the tip of a toe, the hair on a hand – my whole body cold. I’m shivering. There was full moon light through the window only I wished I could turn her out. I saw her earlier on fire. She was smoking and I could smell her down to the ground. Hazy in her film in clouds. She wasn’t red or flaming, but about to burst her cocoon and bloom into the sun.
How will you bloom if you stay still, a soul of a friend says to me. Of course she is right. Souls mostly are. And of course I’ll keep moving, only what scares me most is wiggling out of an old skin, what the new one may look like when the transformation is complete. But I turned over, held on to love and felt instantly warm. And that’s where I am. Thinking about a time with my mom at Dillon’s Beach and her reassurance that even in my quiet times, my shy times, even in times when others may not understand my distance in such a loud world – I’m OK because it’s who I am. Even in my apartment alone where I started and saying goodbye.
Sophia
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4 responses to “Sophia”
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And you too love, are about to burst from your cocoon. Spread your wings, butterfly!
CG-
thank you always, peanut.
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Such a loud, such a fast world. We slower-walking, quieter types have the edges to ourselves. James Thurber wrote of the woman (relative?) who piled her valuables outside her bedroom door every night with a note to the burglars to take what they wanted and not use their chloroform. I believe that change is always picking at us; the forces are mighty and plentiful. I hope I can train myself to see the incremental mutation and find the good, the love within it. To awaken with no chloroform hangover – my dreams have started to sing, this morning it was Cat Stevens “Peace Train” – leaves us with sufficient wits to match the day.
I intended to return sooner, to let your flowing language roll me about. Glad to be here now.
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We guard what is most precious inside us. It feels safe there. I feel I change for myself and no one else. I change because I morph and old insecurities don’t fit anymore, I change because I don’t like discomfort within me. I don’t like dams.
I’d never heard “peace train” before – not sure what I expected, something softer. I smiled when I realized it wasn’t, but it was yellow and life and bright colors in my ears. thank you!Change is subtle – normally. It’s as small as seeing blue as a different shade or knowing that in the past you would have reacted poorly to the same situation. That’s where change and growth is – small subtleties
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