Total silence and brilliant sun wraps around this room.
Exquisite.
So what does she do, but closes her eyes, because the story lies on the other side.
All through the night the tale told itself and made her toss and turn. Over and over around and around, single scenes disjointed from each other walking before her eyes.
Snipits of conversations, glimpses of people...
"Hey, how are you?"
"Wonderful. I'm great. We're excellent." She says, smiling, knowing the truth is betrayed in her eyes, completely counting on the fact that S. never looks her in the eyes. Their conversations are ones that consist completely of small talk. Over a year's worth of small talk.
Nothing real. Just chat.
And exactly as always, S. turns repeats a similiar set of chats with another 20 people in the next 20 minutes.
Wasted words.
Finally, there is a moment. The chaos is subsiding for a while, the sounds are still blasting away at my brain, but all my responsibilities are spoken for. I have a tiny amount of time all to myself as long as I don't leave the area.
I sit. And wait. Wait for my shoulders to let go. Wait to realize I haven't taken a deep breath all day. Wait to just be.
I grab my book out of my bag and open it up. I read a few words and look around. My back begins to release and I'm starting to breath. I hold up the book again and let the words swim.
I'd love to be in a place where I could simply shut my eyes and day dream.
Then I see S. out of the corner of my eye. She's looking through the observation window. She sees me. Eye contact. I smile, nod. She smiles back.
There is a hesitation, a flicker, so brief I doubt it was there. I believe it's my mind playing tricks on me again.
Back to my book, my peace. It could be days again before I have another moment like this. Alone and yet surrounded.
The chaos returns like a wave crashing over me and leaving me gasping for air. The routine is unbroken. The groups swapped out, one chaos for another. I see a glimmer of my moment ahead.
Longing to get back to my book and chair, knowing I'll read nothing and I'll just sit.
I'm just getting ready to go in, back to my place when it's S.
We never have this much contact in a day. She is walking by me, but not in the normal way. Her head is down, eyes not looking, she walks right into my arm.
The startle for her, assulting. She jumps out of her skin, hardly looks at me, half shouts an appology.
In a total reaction, without thought, I take her arm and walk with her, into the small private office.
Suddenly, I'm the adult where she has always been. This is her domain and she commands it, yet I am now briefly in charge.
I close the door gently behind us. For a moment I stand there. Just leaning against the door. Wondering. Thinking.
She is at her desk. Sitting but defeated or crushed or somehow broken. Not like anything I've ever seen before. It's as startling as if I were seeing her in a fast food uniform this woman of command and power.
Strangly unsettling.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Story Begins
So he said to her, all high and mighty, smug in his never ending success, "Just get over yourself already. I mean, come on, you're way past the age of success and you haven't even gotten started. Get on it. Just start. Try working at it just 15 minutes a day. But real work."
And so it began.
She spun on her heart and went back to her regular life. All the mundane that there is to live, she's living it. But at the back of her mind, there was the whisper.
The nag.
Did I miss it? Am I past the only jump at success I'll ever have?
Shouldn't I be able to stand here knee deep in a middle-American life and still have my chance even though I'm 20 years past the date? Couldn't I be late to my own party?
At 20 something I held only the loosest ideas of what or who I wanted to be and as the years have gone by and people have come and gone in my life, I'm seeing both more clearly and less clearly, exactly who or what I should have been or am capable of becoming. There is no place that holds more promise than the very moment you live in.
And why on earth put it all out here in the world, for all to see, don't know. Just going to work it that way.
I'm going to keep wasting words until I hit it. But my success will be mine, not determined by the outside. It won't come as a glimmer of fame or a mountain of titles, it won't be on a best seller list or on a most read list. Nope. Somehow, when the thing is finally written, I'll know that was the success. I'll know it just because.
Much like I've known love in my life. I know it the moment I meet it. No explanations will fit. No logic can define it or category hold it. There are simply people of all ages and sexes and races that walk into my life and I love them instantly. There are others I grow to love and plenty to be friends with, but those that bring love into my life.
So the woman, weary with her life, but wrapped up in joy at the very same time, sat her big butt down in front of the machine and began.
She began what would soon become the all encompassing next stretch of her journey in this life. And so it should be.
There are people around me in my life right now, realizing that the important things are sliding right on bye and they are being entirely sensible by being selfish. They are wisely stepping back from the things that are fun and wonderful and connecting and retreating to save those things that are in reality critical to them.
It is a wild and wondrous thing that she can type while looking out the window.
A strange gift and yet sometimes a curse.
Then the mind wanders faster than the words will hit paper.
Read me she screams and yet, let me never be seen. Comment and tell me what I want to hear, but more than that, tell me the truth. I can take it at this late age in my race. I can. That would be a good thing in this life, for if I'm on a wasted track, running a race I should never have put my shoes on for, then for all that is good in this world would someone please tell me, and I'll get out of the way on this track and let those who are fast and sleek run the race.
I'll go back to the sidelines and wander around some more. I'll dream and wonder, what am I really?
She wishes there had been an instruction book left in her life somewhere along the line. One that would have said at this time, turn left here, put on this career, this goal, this personality and go forth. For this will be the time of your success.
But no. It was not like that at all.
No. Instead it came down to this. A challenge.
Put your pen where your waste of time wondering lies and see what comes out.
And so it began.
She spun on her heart and went back to her regular life. All the mundane that there is to live, she's living it. But at the back of her mind, there was the whisper.
The nag.
Did I miss it? Am I past the only jump at success I'll ever have?
Shouldn't I be able to stand here knee deep in a middle-American life and still have my chance even though I'm 20 years past the date? Couldn't I be late to my own party?
At 20 something I held only the loosest ideas of what or who I wanted to be and as the years have gone by and people have come and gone in my life, I'm seeing both more clearly and less clearly, exactly who or what I should have been or am capable of becoming. There is no place that holds more promise than the very moment you live in.
And why on earth put it all out here in the world, for all to see, don't know. Just going to work it that way.
I'm going to keep wasting words until I hit it. But my success will be mine, not determined by the outside. It won't come as a glimmer of fame or a mountain of titles, it won't be on a best seller list or on a most read list. Nope. Somehow, when the thing is finally written, I'll know that was the success. I'll know it just because.
Much like I've known love in my life. I know it the moment I meet it. No explanations will fit. No logic can define it or category hold it. There are simply people of all ages and sexes and races that walk into my life and I love them instantly. There are others I grow to love and plenty to be friends with, but those that bring love into my life.
So the woman, weary with her life, but wrapped up in joy at the very same time, sat her big butt down in front of the machine and began.
She began what would soon become the all encompassing next stretch of her journey in this life. And so it should be.
There are people around me in my life right now, realizing that the important things are sliding right on bye and they are being entirely sensible by being selfish. They are wisely stepping back from the things that are fun and wonderful and connecting and retreating to save those things that are in reality critical to them.
It is a wild and wondrous thing that she can type while looking out the window.
A strange gift and yet sometimes a curse.
Then the mind wanders faster than the words will hit paper.
Read me she screams and yet, let me never be seen. Comment and tell me what I want to hear, but more than that, tell me the truth. I can take it at this late age in my race. I can. That would be a good thing in this life, for if I'm on a wasted track, running a race I should never have put my shoes on for, then for all that is good in this world would someone please tell me, and I'll get out of the way on this track and let those who are fast and sleek run the race.
I'll go back to the sidelines and wander around some more. I'll dream and wonder, what am I really?
She wishes there had been an instruction book left in her life somewhere along the line. One that would have said at this time, turn left here, put on this career, this goal, this personality and go forth. For this will be the time of your success.
But no. It was not like that at all.
No. Instead it came down to this. A challenge.
Put your pen where your waste of time wondering lies and see what comes out.
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