By anonymous
What do I notice now that I must move slow, or now that I must stay in place? Life moves slower, yes, but in certain moments, its resolution increases.
What grows underfoot – what stems, leaves, and flowers grow and twist towards sunlight along the sidewalk, brushed by the bags of passers-by, swaying as cars rush past?
Looking closely, I notice resin, I notice the finest hairs growing along a stem almost stepped on. I lean against a wall to rest to find an entire world growing within it – tiny geraniums creating their own forest floor.
I wake up the next morning and everything hurts, and I am far too weak to venture out.
This is nothing new, but nothing is of much consolation, and I feel the sting of loss acutely. There will be no wildflowers today. I open the curtain and what greets me is not the flat, blue expanse of open sky, but a mountainous cumulous, a plane buzzing below it. Nothing is of much consolation, yes – but it is enough, for a moment, to lose myself in this cloud’s folds and valleys and cliffs. I think of painting again. It seems a good partner for grief.
Weeks later, I take myself to the park, and find that I have used all of my energy to get there. I sit exhausted in the parking lot. But I am making better friends with grief. She is with me again here, and looking away will do no good. I rest a hand on her shoulder. “Here we are again.”
She encourages me to be gentle. So I open a car door and look into the park, spotting purples and yellows growing along the park’s margins. I know it well – bittersweet nightshade, invasive, toxic. But today I am glad for the color, colors that I could document, work into a painting, and remember a day when I was gentle with myself.
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