Queen of the Jungle

 

Throughout my childhood, I woke up early every Saturday morning while everyone else slept
Just to watch TV re-runs of Ron Ely swing on vines
And command the lions, crocodiles, great apes, and elephants,
All while dressed in a small leather loincloth.
I was enamored with the concept of Lord Greystoke, otherwise known as
Tarzan, King of the Jungle.

I wanted to be Tarzan.

When my dad hung up a tire swing in the woods way behind our house,
I would often go and straddle the top of the tire swing,
Tiny hands gripping tightly onto the yellow rope.
With my arms extended, hanging my torso over open ground,
Swinging back and forth,
Loudly imitating the Tarzan cry,
I often beat my chest, imagining my power over all the creatures around me.

It didn’t matter that Tarzan was a male and I was just a little girl.
Possibilities were all I knew.
I could become Tarzan and build my tiny muscles into giant ropes of tissue.
It was just a matter of time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
 

Somehow,
At some point in my life,
I’m not sure when or how,
My Tarzan dream died.
My Tarzan hid in the jungles and didn’t make much noise.
Her powers to command the jungles were subdued.

I’m not sure if I was subconsciously taught by society
That girls didn’t do those types of things,
That girls in central Florida couldn’t go to Africa and become kings of jungles,
That humans couldn’t possibly control all these creatures, OR
That the Tarzan story was just a myth, a made-up story by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
(In fact, it wasn’t until a pop culture literature class in grad school that I read the original Tarzan novel.)
  
I’m not sure how or when,
But my Tarzan dream died.

The rebel in me,
The tiny kingdom-conqueror,
Became a rule-follower, a color-in-the-lines individual, an authority non-questioner.
Yes, I was a leader.
I was the person others followed even at a young age.
I tended to take over situations when no one else did.
I did not mind being the little adult in a tiny body.
In fact, when my kindergarten teacher left the classroom, I gathered the other kindergarteners around me while I read them The Cat in the Hat, displaying pictures between page turns.
I was a teacher even at age 5.

But somewhere along the way, this Tarzan wannabe learned that
The authorities were to be listened to,
And without question, I was to do what they told me.

Even if it was a pastor who thought it would be great fun to smear rubber cement all over both my tiny arms one day,
I never expressed alarm.
Even when a teacher decided to put me as a sixth grader in charge of demerits for fellow sixth grade patrol officers,
I never complained aloud but just went home and cried over the cruelty of angry peers.
Even when a youth pastor put me as a ninth grader in charge of planning an entire weekend of teen activities,
I silently cried at home when he criticized me in front of my teenage peers after the event ended.

I kept leading.
I kept volunteering and being a tiny adult,
But inside, I learned to take up less and less space.
No swinging from vines, or yelling my presence to the world,
But silently, antlike, busylike, I did what I was told.
I avoided the “too’s” as much as possible—too strong, too much, too ______.

In my first teaching job, when the assistant principal frequently made false claims about what “good teachers” could do, suggesting that I was a failure,
I quietly went about doing my job (and somehow didn’t give up teaching).
Both parents warned me that some men felt threatened by competent, able females.  
Neither suggested I be less than.
 

However, I could see no escape.
I was a female.
I was competent and able.
What was my alternative option?

A Tarzan wasn't allowed in this world.  All I learned to do was to stifle my jungle cry.  

These men threatened by competent, able females seemed to cross paths with me.
It happened again with a narcissistic pastor boss who made me feel less than, who told me I was “not worthy” to be a minister.
It happened again later with a supervisor who put every strong individual in their place and punished me with a schedule that was unmanageable.

Each time I stayed quiet.
I didn’t scream, or yell, or speak up for myself.
I didn’t file a complaint or go to HR.
I didn’t call the lions and the elephants to my rescue.

Each time I feared the repercussions that would come if I swung on my vine,
if I beat my chest,
If I loudly claimed my space in this world.

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If I am honest, because I knew no other alternatives,
It happened in many personal relationships,
Where I gave up space,
Trying to love,
Trying to please,
Trying to be the person I felt I should be.

I didn’t ask the right questions.
I didn’t question statements that possibly seemed untrue.
I didn’t tell anyone I was Tarzan, and I didn't yell my jungle cry.
I just went along, busylike and antlike,
Mowing the yard, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, raising the boys, grading papers, buying groceries, and checking off items on my list of tasks.

I didn’t assert myself as Queen of the Jungle.
When I was told at age 20, “You grew on me like a wart” as a statement of how we fell in love,
I didn’t beat my chest and express my power.
I didn’t speak up about the hurt.

I loved big.
But I lost big.
This Tarzan made mistakes, but this Tarzan denied herself
And her power
And her voice.

            * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Somehow,
In the rubble of the death of my husband,
As I was cleaning up the belongings stashed in corners of the house and in closets,
piled in the shed and in the garage,
As I removed the excess,
As I went through boxes, and uncovered long-lost belongings,
I somehow uncovered Tarzan hidden among the boxes.

Tarzan was there all along.
She was a bit dusty and her voice creaked from lack of use.
However, Tarzan's eyes still twinkled,
And unloosed from the piles of restrictions,
And with practice on a figurative tire swing,
And with daily vocal cries,
She is starting to regain her power.

From what I can tell,
And what I can observe,
This new Tarzan is one badass Queen of the Jungle.
You should see her swing.
You should see her beat her chest.
You should hear her yell her jungle cry,
And she will never again relinquish her hard-earned spot as Queen of the Jungle.  

She is finally realizing her dream to become Tarzan—
Not a myth—
A reality.

Secreted Treasures

 

 

Walking down aisles in stores for months,
I loved finding small treasures,
Picking them up and putting them in my cart,
Imagining the upcoming excitement and the smiles.

How I used to love purchasing
Little objects that spoke to their boy hearts,
Toys that encouraged their passions,
Items that would pique their curiosities and excite them,
Reminding them
That life was a joy
And that their mother loved them with all her heart.

I secreted these objects in hidden corners,
Holding them for that special moment that commemorated their day
Or that moment they saw the signs of my love under a fir tree.

I then tenderly wrapped these specially-selected treasures,
Hugging the paper around the item, hiding its identity until the perfect moment.

Now that those moments have passed and are replaced
With a more refined, adultlike reaction,
Now that their passions and curiosities are a bit more unknown to me,
I walk down the aisles a bit more unsure,
But thankful for so many precious memories and moments hidden in my heart.  

* * * * * *

All those years of focusing on them,
Of loving others,
Of getting up on weary feet and doing and doing and doing,
Of listening to others’ voices and others’ needs,
Of putting many of my own desires on the shelf,
Of shutting out my own voice,
I am now walking down the aisles again.
Alone.
Alone the majority of the time now.

But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
I now can hear my voice in the silence.
I now can hear my little inner voice asking to just sit, to just relax, to just be.


I am just now discovering a long-hidden reason to walk down the aisles,
To spend my time and energies.
I now walk down aisles and love finding small treasures,
Imagining how this little object speaks to my heart,
How it piques my curiosities about life.

I now dream how to use my time to encourage my passions.
I look for ways to remind myself that life is a joy
And remind this little “girl” inside that she is loved.

I tenderly select these treasures,
These experiences,
These moments,
And I hug them around me as tightly as a soft blanket around my shoulders.  

Whether the experience is finding a small antique that will create a spot of joy in my house,
Or sitting in the air conditioning, watching a rabbit hop through the grass in my front yard,
Or laughing as Calli falls over herself as she tries to catch a ball,
Or cuddling up with a blanket, a glass of wine beside me, as a rerun of Law and Order plays on the television,
Or finishing a book chapter with tears rolling down my cheeks as the words carefully woven on the page touch me,
Or lying in bed for moments after the sun has risen,
Or dancing in my back yard to a piece of music that makes my body move.

I look for special treasures,
Ways to thrill this “little girl” to make a smile reappear from ear to ear,
To feel the excitement and anticipation thrumming beneath the skin,
A trip to a tiny cabin to turn off the technology and listen to the silence, to read and write and dream, to wrap myself up in possibilities,
Snow angels with co-workers in Chicago,
A moment seeing my 22-year-old accepting his college diploma with my 26-year-old beside me,
Or my first non-Christian music concert at age 55,
Or a trip across the country to meet with writers and sit beside the Hudson River,
Or moments in my childhood town, sitting beside lakes, visiting with friends, and reflecting on the past.

In these moments, I remind myself that life is a joy,
then secrete the treasured time in a hidden place in my mind and heart.

I am busy loving life as it is, as much as I can,
Loving myself in a way maybe I haven’t been loved
Or haven’t been listened to since I was young
When my own mother walked down the aisles picking treasures for her little girls.

And as I put my head on my pillow at the end of my life,
I hope I will treasure these little specially-selected moments
That are wrapped and secreted in corners of my brain,
Knowing that I loved
And was loved.

The Tree Needs to Go: A Lesson in What Was---and What Could Be

 

The tree needs to go.
Nostalgia and a hope of new growth—
And a desire for a sliver of shade in the heat of summer—
Kept me from cutting the whole thing down in 2022.

It’s ugly.
The only branches left are sucker branches that do not belong.
The majority of the branches died in Sno-pocalypse 2022.
Its limbs remaining are short, mismatched,
It will mark no new life in a year—or maybe two.

But the trunk stands strong.
The trunk—the shelter it once represented for me and my boys—
Is now the shelter for two families of red-streaked ladder-backed woodpeckers
Who marked their arrival with incessant knocking on the rough wood bark,
As if they were begging the trunk for entrance.

With much effort, they cut piece after piece of wood away to make the perfect home
Marked by a perfect circled entrance.
The mother and father sit guard,
Early morning into the dark,
Resilient, determined, and resolute,
Watching over their home,
Protecting their young,
Keeping out predators,
Feeding,
Providing a home to the best of their abilities.

Just as this mother once did,
Watching over her home,
Protecting her young,
Keeping out predators,
Feeding,
Providing a home to the best of her abilities.

Where I saw just a month ago the symbol of the loss of what was,
They see beauty and purpose and hope in what could be.

Who knows what else could be?

The tree will stand.

The tree will not go.
 

Opening up the Tupperware

 

My sister and I could tell stories—
Stories my mother would never want shared.
Even on her deathbed, my mom was distraught that Kelly and I would have to clean out her refrigerator and freezer.  

Let’s just say that our refrigerator growing up resembled many in the 1970s.   
Tupperware was famous at the time for “locking in freshness,” and the colors of brown, orange, green, and mustard yellow were all the rage.
We didn’t own many Tupperware containers,
But instead, on the shelves of our Kenmore were multiple re-used and re-washed butter and Cool Whip containers.  
Very few containers in our refrigerator while we grew up contained what the label said.
As a result, it was always a bit of “Where’s Waldo” as we searched for food in the refrigerator,
Going from container to container to see what was inside.

I lived in a very fiscally frugal household.
We saved small amounts of leftovers and would save them for a once-a-week smorgasbord, or as we called it, a borg-a-smord.
Twenty or more small butter and Cool Whip  containers would cover the kitchen counter.  
Three spoons of corn, two slices of meatloaf, a small portion of spaghetti, and some jello would make a meal.
(The worst part of this was the cleaning of each of these small plastic containers afterwards).

However, the stories that still bring Kelly and me to giggles today—
the same stories my mother would not want shared because she would fear it would reflect poorly on her household cleaning–
Involve the inevitable Bermuda Triangle container (or containers).
The brown-lidded container would somehow get lost among the dozens and be re-discovered much later.

We poor, innocent children were not prepared for the discovery.
We were anticipating treasure only to discover a scientist’s glorious petri dish within the plastic.
Green, blue furry globs were accompanied by an odor that would make us shriek and scream.
The original food was unrecognizable.  A new life form had taken its place.
Sadly, since we lived in the country and had no trash service, we composted everything,
So, also sadly and to our disgust and revulsion, we were then tasked with scraping out the globs into a Tupperware tub that would be emptied in the compost pile later that night.
Then, the brown-lidded Bermuda Triangle container would be washed and used again.

Emptying the Bermuda Triangle “treasure” into the rotting compost pile outside
Is still the stuff of nightmares.
I almost gag right now thinking about it.


* * * * * * * * * * * * *

My childhood was influenced by Tupperware.
The secrets, the truths—both pleasant and noxious—were sealed within the plastic walls.

The 1940s and 1950s, when my parents grew up, were the decades in which Tupperware was created and then patented by Earl Tupper.
Tupperware parties finally allowed women of the time an opportunity to work—in fact, the slogan was “Tupperware is—-where work and pleasure come together.”

Somehow in this time of change for both men and women, mental health was not really discussed.
Veterans returned from war with “shell shock” or “soldier’s heart” but were not treated.
Abuse was non-existent.
Women’s postpartum depression was ignored or blamed on the weakness of the woman.

Depression?
Anxiety?
The solution at the time—  
Just shut them up in a plastic container, and seal the lid.  
These problems simply disappear.
Or they mold.
Or they grow anew, all sealed away in the plastic darkness.

My grandfather had a “nervous breakdown.”
He cried in the living room, unable to go anywhere, but this was never explained to me as a young child.

I never heard my parents argue
Or really verbally disagree.
There were no conflicts.
Obviously, that was not true, but it was all “sealed in.”

I knew no one who was divorced while growing up.
I knew no one who was financially bankrupt or struggling with abuse at home.
I knew no one who was gay or dealing with bipolar disorder.

And yet, of course I did.
I know I did.

Unhappy marriages were all around me, with pasted-on smiles and the “burping seal” of approval of the others whose lives were also hidden inside the figurative Tupperware.
We wrapped up our abuse, struggles with sexual identity, mental health issues
And we sealed them up and hid them in the back corner of our Kenmores.
From the outside, no one could see what was inside.
The labels said “healthy” and “happy” and “functional” and “Christian” and “financially secure” and “mentally thriving.”
Inside,
Inside was another story.

Inside was a soul rotting,
A soul living with self-doubt,
A soul wondering if he or she was the only one,
A soul wondering why the cliches and the scripture verses didn’t cut it,
A soul who looked at all the other Tupperware lives and couldn’t open up and be real.


* * * * * * * * * *

When my life fell apart in 2004 . . .
When the lid to my Tupperware fell off,
People didn’t like the truth of what was inside.
I didn’t either.
I had hidden it and pretended it didn’t exist.
I had put it to the back of the Kenmore and that famous seal hid the truth.  

Those around me begged me to put the lid back on and pretend it was all perfectly fine.
After all, it is easier to “seal in the freshness” and pretend the green globs are not inside.
It is easier to pretend that none of us have Bermuda Triangle containers that are rotting within.
It is easier to look at the labels on the outside than to go beside the compost pit in the backyard
And scrape and scrape and empty and throw it all away.

I avoided the scraping.
I avoided the compost pit.
But the reality became public,
And my life as a  good woman who is able to pray the bad away,
My life as a good enough wife to hold her family together,
Got thrown in the pit,
And believe me, there was a wide berth taken by others whose Kenmores looked nice and neat.

The lid on my Tupperware was off, and it has never really gone back on.
That situation taught me the freedom of taking off the lid and just being who I am.

Years later, in a very honest conversation,
Mom confessed that I had taught her a lot about being vulnerable
Because she was never shown how to do that.

I am open with my students and my colleagues and those I befriend
About my depression,
About my anxiety,
About my husband’s death,
About my sons, and
About how my life has become something different than the color-coordinated Tupperware containers
Lined up on the shelves of my Kenmore.


* * * * * * * * * *

I am glad for Earl Tupper’s invention.
However, I have thrown out the Tupperware.
I now have glass storage containers.
What you see is what you get.
No more trips to the compost piles.
No more surprises of hidden “treasures.”

My goal is to know exactly what is in my Kenmore—

Teddy Bear at 11:00, Star Books at 523.8

 

Each stuffed animal had its place.  A particular spot.
Teddy Bear at 11:00, Raggedy Ann at 10:45, Rabbit at 10:30 . . .
With about 20 stuffed animals, I had a cozy spot
Right in the middle with my Bozo beside me.

Each book had its place.  A particular spot.
My love for my elementary school library and librarian, Mrs. Jones,
Had inspired my own bookshelves.
Dewey Decimal and alphabetical order determined where each book was placed.
(If you don’t believe me, ask my poor sister).

Each plastic figure had a name.  Had a home.  Had a grade or job assigned.
The Fisher-Price Little People executives had no idea a young child
Didn’t just play but organized
And created a little life with all her buildings and cars and people.
(I still have my index card “census” by building).

This little girl
Organized wherever she went,
Imitating two very organized parents,
Organizing dolls, books, and toys,
Organizing puppet scripts at church,
Organizing her 4th grade teacher’s papers and grades (Yes, this 9-year-old did Mrs. Phyle’s gradebook),
And then filing and organizing the music at the high school band library.

She grew older.
But still was
Organizing,
And trying to order life,
To make sense of it,

To convince herself that she could do math—
That this action plus that action would equal a specific result.

That if she was good and worked hard,
That if she contributed her very best to a relationship,
That if she loved others with all her heart,
That if she loved her children to the best of her abilities,
That if she put her best effort into a job,
That if she followed through with her promises,
That if she tried to be honest, to live with integrity,

That if she did all that,
The results would be simple math.

Happiness.
A loving family who always was there.
Loving children who wanted to be nearby.
A job where her efforts were rewarded.
A life full of love and joy and
A life full of people who also loved her with all their hearts and followed through with their promises,
Relationships marked by integrity and honesty and love.

If Teddy Bear was at 11,
and if books about the stars (at 523.8) came before biographies (at 920),
and if the red-headed Little People girl with pigtails named Gina Smith lived in the Main Street Village 2nd floor above the barber shop and worked at the Lift and Load Depot in Fisher Price Land,

Then, surely,
A life lived with good intentions
Would be matched with good intentions.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The divorce revealed the flaw in the math.
This little girl, grown adult, had no control over what others said about her,
What they thought of a supposedly godly woman whose husband filed,
Whether she worked too hard, loved her husband enough, and did enough for him,
That a minister wasn’t worthy if her family was falling apart,
What they claimed she said and did and didn’t do.

This little girl, grown mother, had no control over what her boys did or saw or experienced
Half of every month,
Half of every year.
She couldn’t control what was said to them,
Or what they chose to believe.
This little girl, grown mother, had to learn to hug when she could,
Speak when she could,
and love ALL the time,
With no idea of the math equation results.

Endless hours spent over homework or in school meetings, or at school events,
Endless hours spent with an aching heart,
Endless hours of work schedules adjusted to just be present,
Endless hours of Spongebob, iCarly, and Aing the Avatar,
Months and years of carrying around Nemo the stuffed animal,
All—
With no idea how it would end,
With fear of the threats it would all end at age 16 when this little girl, grown mother, would never see them again.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The TRUTH IS . . .

This English major, who also loved science and math,
Cannot skew this real-life math equation enough to make the X+Y=Z,
Cannot organize life enough to have it make sense.
There are no guarantees.

My actions do not always guarantee a reaction.
I cannot act, trusting that an equal reaction will happen.

Just because I work my hardest at work does not mean that my bosses will have my back.
Just because I love my sons with all my heart does not mean that this love will be reciprocated.
Just because I live with integrity does not mean others will treat me with integrity.
Just because I try to love others with my whole self does not mean they will love me back the same way.

If I am acting in a certain way, trusting in a certain result, I will be disappointed.
I cannot force others to line up on a shelf in a Dewey Decimal system.
I cannot line up the people in my life to surround me at exactly at the 10:30 or 11:00 moment.
I cannot detoxify the people who poison my life.
My expectations will not be met if I try to organize others the way I hope they will act—-

Even if it’s wrong,
Even if it’s unfair,
Even if it seems unjust,
Even if the selfish, the toxic, the self-serving, the lazy, the abusive appear to get ahead.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

My REALIZATION is . . . .

I can only control myself.
My movements.
My words.
My actions.
My heart.
I can only control how their actions affect me.
I can only decide if I will give up being me—with all my alphabetical-loving cells?
If I will give up living the life of integrity and love on my side of the equation.

Perhaps, all I have learned since the young age of 4 or 5,
All this life has taught me is that
Teddy Bear can still be at 11:00.
And Raggedy Ann can still be at 10:30,
But I may have made a bit of room for a new stuffed animal at 10:20—
Or for a few stuffies to be moved to my feet.

And a few of my books may be sitting on my lap instead of on shelves in perfect Dewey Decimal Order.
A few of my books may be loaned out to friends,
And a few may even have been misplaced or put  on the wrong shelves.
I will live.

And perhaps I will find a bit of joy in the fact that my star books are by the window and by my telescope rather than at 523.8.
Perhaps letting go of the order,
Of the expectations,
Allow me to enjoy the wonder of it all—
The mystery of it all–
With no guarantees,
With no future determined,
With no way to know how the equation will work out.

But here I am,
Looking out of the window,
With the telescope in hand,
Holding my breath, watching expectantly.

 

 

 

 

It was 1 : 30-- Ekleípō

 

Waco, 4/8/2024

It was 1:30.  
A normal day in Texas.
Birds sang.  
Squirrels scampered, winding their way around the tree trunk, up and up.
The sun shone, causing a sheen of sweat to gather on my brow.
Normal everyday issues raced around my mind—the unanswered emails, the ungraded essays, and the unclean house.  
A normal day in Texas.

Except that it wasn’t.
1:37:56.
The sky went dark.
The birds quit singing.
The outdoor lights came on.
The rooster crowed, warning me,
Harkening back to me the end of something, or perhaps the start of the opposite.
Sight was dimmed.

A total ekleípō, Greek for "disappearance."

Had I not watched the news or seen all the social media posts,
Had I been someone a century ago,
I may have stood in the same spot, interpreting the rooster’s three crows
As a repeat of Peter’s failed vow,
Of the end of one reality and the start of another.

Had I not had access to Google, Alexa, and the Weather Channel,
I may have seen the disappearance of the sun from view as
A direct reflection of my sinful nature,
A sign of the heavens’ displeasure,
A mark of the end of times.

But I knew.
What a difference that knowledge made.
I knew the darkness was temporary,
The abnormal twilight would only be in existence for 4 minutes, 13 seconds.
I knew the sun had not been destroyed,
I knew my life force, my lamp of heaven, my hope would reappear.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * *


1:37:56 made an impact.
It reminded me of other times
When birds have stopped singing,
When skies have darkened with no warning,
When my hope was hidden behind a force bigger than myself.

Reminders of other times—
At age 23, when I picked up the phone to hear, “Kim, your dad is gone.”
At age 35, when I heard the words, “I filed for divorce.”
On Christmas Day, at age 48, when I heard on the phone, “Jonathan isn’t coming back to your house.  He’s living with me from now on.  Merry Christmas.”
At age 51, when I heard the news that Mom’s lungs had frozen due to chemo, that there was no cure— and my own lungs gasped for air and my hand grasped for a solid surface.  
At age 53 at 2:00 a.m., when a knock by some grim deputies confirmed my worst fear—   I was now a widow, a word I hate, and a status I was not prepared to carry.

On each of these occasions, the sun disappeared.
The world grew dim.
No bird sang.
Stillness.
But each of these times, there was no certainty of 4 minutes and 13 seconds.
No prediction that in just a few moments, life as I knew it would resume.
No prediction that the darkness would ever end.

Each occasion had me looking at the skies,
Asking difficult questions.
As someone a century ago, asking if I had done something to deserve it,
How long this ekleípō, or darkness, would last.
How life could or would go on.

I feared
The end of joy,
The uncertainty of the future,
The knowledge of the cold that comes without the warmth of that life force I had taken for granted,
All I had was that moment in the dark,
Looking at the sky,
Hoping.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


However, each time, just as it did the other day at 1:41:09,
With an expectant eye toward the sky,
A small dot of light appeared in the darkness,
A small line of hope that life would go on,
With no understanding of how—or why—
But each moment as the clock ticked,
The light was revealed,
The source of life, the hope, the possibility of finding joy again
Found a spot in my heart.

Each other occasion when I experienced ekleípō, totality didn’t end in 4 minutes and 13 seconds.
It took time,
Lots of time,
Lots of tentative breathing, tears, sleepless nights.
Lots of star gazing.
Lots of fearful hope.

But the sun is still there.
Still . . .
No matter the stillness and silence of the birds,
No matter the rooster crow or the dimness,
The sun is still there.
Still . . .

Silence---This and the Other

 

 

On this particular evening—
Silence is a warm fleece blanket that has just come out of the clothes dryer on a cold night.
Silence is a popping flame in a fire pit while listening to Nat King Cole’s “Christmas Story”
This Silence is an ooey-gooey marshmallow and Hershey’s bar on a s’more.
This Silence is a friend I have not seen in a long while, and while I melt into his arms, I find myself home.
He is a baby snoring peacefully on my chest.
This Silence is a toe dipped in warm tub water after a long day.
This Silence is as welcome as the sight of a young child running to see his mom at the end of a day.

I long for This Silence.
I find myself in This Silence.
I play hide and seek with This Silence, deliberately seeking him out,
Turning off the television, the noise of the world.
And when I find him, I put my head on his chest, and feel his warm arm around my shoulders.
Peace.

This Silence reminds me of my best self, my strengths, my value in the world.
This Silence whispers affirmations in my ear,
He makes me feel like I am capable of almost anything.
I cuddle up with This Silence and never want him to leave.

BUT

This Silence has a twin,
A mirror character,
A foil,
A monster under the bed,
A dark shadow hiding in the closet.
And this Other Silence appears when I least expect him.

This Other Silence laughs like a middle school bully,
This Other Silence screams at me,
Cackles at me with teasing reminders of my aloneness,
Taunts me with past betrayals,
Berates me for past  mistakes,
Whispers to me of lost relationships, blaming me,
His voice is the sound of a wind howling outside on a moonless night.  

He lands his laser focus on the empty chair,
the hopes and dreams that are unfulfilled,
the missing voices of my children,
the pictures of those who have gone on,
the silent phone,
the empty email box and mail box.

The noise is deafening in this Other Silence.

This Other Silence taps me on the shoulder with lost touches.
He tears at my clothes, rips off the blanket on my lap,
Exposing my skin, raising chill bumps from the back of my neck to my toes.
He rips the pages from the books that carry me to other worlds,
And hands me back a blank cover, saying that there is no escape.
He closes the blinds and turns out the lights.
He blows the candle flame out—-and leaves me no opportunity to wish.

He magnifies the echoes of my voice,
As I desperately try to fill the space left.
He traces my skin with his fingers at least an inch above my body,
Making me almost beg for touch,
For communion, for another,
And then disappears in a poof of air.

He leaves me bare and naked, shivering vulnerable beneath his interrogation lamp.
He leaves me the audio recording of every horrible thing ever said to me,
Even providing me headphones so I can hear better.
This Other Silence lies, as he shows me the evidence of my aloneness,
Convincing me that I must confess, I must break.
No one can save me.
It is all my fault.
It is just me.
Alone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It would be so easy to agree with this Other Silence.
He is so convincing.

It would be so easy to give up, to take the blame, to sit there shivering.
But each time
This Other Silence comes out of hiding,
Each time he creeps and snarls from under my bed,
Each time this Other Silence leaves me bare and naked,
I somehow get up.

Sometimes, in this nakedness,
I pick up the pen and the blank paper,
And scratch some words in black ink,
Revealing my nakedness for all to see,
Hoping that in this vulnerability, someone else will know they are not alone,
Finding the universality of our human experience.

Other times, when this Other Silence leaves me bare and naked,
I get on my hands and knees and gather the scraps of clothing torn from me,
And find the thread and needle
And sit, surrounded by images of my family,
Surrounded by memories of happy moments with friends,
And I sew.
I mend the holes.
I refashion the old scraps.
I make myself a new outfit that fits the new self.

While I sew, I begin to sway.
I tap, tap, tap my toes.
I move my lips to a song hidden within.

This Other Silence slinks away with my music.
I am ready to dance.
Watch me.