scribblechic

Personalities flit through my days, larger than life, pressing against my attention and distracting me with the fullness of their presence. I watch them, enamored by their casual confidence and easy humor, innocent brazenness and conspiratorial certainty. They move within skins that cradle strength beneath emotions poorly hidden, tender in spirit and reckless with entitlement. Generous and eager, impatient and steadfast, they are bold in word and deed. I feel weightless in comparison; the whim of my thoughts and uncertainty of self an internal taunting. Old muscles and new thoughts dare me to step inside discomfort, moving outside the security of invisibility; inside the weight of self.

Here, among the intimacies of our thoughts and an endless wealth of words, there is a temptation to filter our lives; shaping our image of self by softening hard lines and tinting tones into a gentler suggestion of self. The composition of our thoughts as we translate emotions into words can be tumbled and constructed to lend depth as easily as they offer privacy. It is a medium of honesty and artistry.

Yesterday’s post was a temptation of denial; ugly truths whose words sat against my morning heavy and unwelcome as I greeted the day. Cumbersome and unpliable these truths cannot be molded into something beautiful, only silenced or shared.

Today I am sweeping my words with hope like broad strokes against a chalkboard, leaving faded lines of yesterday’s words upon my slate. Sifting through thoughts dusted in sentiment and marking a new day with footnotes that stick to my path informing each new direction.

Yesterday the hurt and discomfort of a loved one’s behavior clung to thoughts like clothes a size too small against wet skin. No matter how my husband and I arranged our words or performed daily tasks the fabric of harm pulled tightly against our efforts restricting our movements and tugging at unpleasant emotions.

That is until our daughter clothed herself in blame, wearing the burden of responsibility for the quiet misery that had threaded itself through the days beginning with her birthday. Sweet, sensitive, and intuitive beyond her years our daughter assumed the debt of others’ joy innocently and with love. Rather than drain the evening of play, she endeavored to fill broken spirits holding her happiness in trade.

The harm that my husband and I have worked to hide from our children behind acts of hope and good intentions was misplaced upon our daughter’s shoulders. Rather than shield our children with silent reassurances that ring hollow, perhaps we must inform more mindful boundaries of worth and respect; recognizing the value of response over reaction and creating a dialogue of accountability in place of blame. Preserving the sanctity of our home as a safe haven for honesty and joy rather than bartering an illusion of loyalty at the cost of well-being.

The celebratory spirit of this past week has been shadowed by the complicated company of family; unhealthy patterns of disrespect and selfishness, cancers that consume patience and kindness leaving tender wounds and defensiveness. In even the simplest moments there is an intricate web of distraction perched high atop a net of worry, the contradiction of beauty and safety illuminating the dangerous fall that measures the distance from joy to harm.

We walk on coals whose heat threatens the calloused pieces of hope beneath the tented structure of our home. It is a circus act that postures as a fiction of normal that leaves us all cloaked in ill-fitting masks and postures more garish for their forced brightness. The thin wire that connects our days has left me too tired to balance between acts, it is time to clear the air of cables and costumes.

Thoughts that accumulate in the emptiness of absence and clamor loudly against the hollowness of silence.  Some days hello is really a plea to be heard, even if only to listen to the fading repetition of one’s own voice bouncing against unspoken wishes. A weighted word cast into a void we dispense five little letters into the vast chambers of hope, then scavenge the answering sound for an echo of self.

Hello.

It begins with a curious distraction, an imprecise beginning. Amidst the canvas of the ordinary a beautiful imperfection distorts my expectations and promises discovery. Grasping the opportunity to engage more deeply with a fleeting thought, I tug with equal measure unapologetic preoccupation and delighted fascination. Sometimes the thought is little more than a loose thread whose end is neatly extracted and other times the tangle knots itself into my thoughts indefinitely offering a blissful challenge. Once in a while, I find within my own lovely mess a strand by another’s hand that creates a new unraveling.

Fragments of doubt from my last entry persist in chaffing at my consciousness. It is an unfinished thought that whispers in my ear and obscures my attention.

Like a child misplaced and desperate to belong, it is not enough to live among my words.

This wanting is a disruptive guest, unsettling the balance of my emotions. I wonder where I might plant my feet that the wind might blow with a lover’s hand or the sounds might beckon with a siren’s call. Is there a center to our path, an outside that pulls us inward?

These are the hasty strokes of doubt that cannot occupy my dreams tonight as my mind turns uneasily against the unknown.