This is my eighteenth post for the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. My prompt this week comes from Trish. Her prompt will be at the end.
I gave the prompt - silence in black and white - to Michael. I selfishly love it when he receives my prompts! Go check out his response!
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One evening, as she drove home from work, she got lost. She had taken this route each day for many years, but this time she had somehow managed to get lost. A song she hadn’t heard before was playing on her iPod, and she found herself so lost in its lyrics that she didn’t make the right turn.
And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up,
I look up, on my knees and out of luck, I look up.
She pulled into a parking lot to turn around, but instead of trying to find her way again, she decided instead to park. She needed to listen to this song again. As she listened carefully to its lyrics, she finally accepted to herself that she was weathering her own storm and that it would pass. The biggest dimensions of her life – work, home, and love –had all become unstable. And in this moment of instability, the song’s lyrics had moved her to a sense of stability in her heart -- the first sense of stability she had felt in her heart in many years.
Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won't rot, I won't rot
Not this mind and not this heart, I won't rot.
She thought about everything that had happened, and she realized that she had gotten to a place in life where she sought stability in the very things in life that can become unstable in a blink of an eye.
And I took you by the hand
And we stood tall,
And remembered our own land,
What we lived for.
When she was younger, giving up certain stabilities in her life had usually been her choice, and if it hadn't, she quickly rolled with the punches and accepted change as part of life's journey. She actually pursued change. She desired growth from that change. The only stability she knew was in her heart. As she had gotten older, she realized that she had somehow gotten to a place in life where she suddenly feared life’s constant evolve. She feared instability. She had become fearful of change. How had she suddenly gotten to a point in life where she was holding on so tightly to everything she loved when she had always believed with all her heart that it was best to accept change as life's only constant?
And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
She knew there was nothing more she could do other than face the storm. She knew she had to get over the hill and find what life had in store for her on the other side. She knew she needed to cry so that the tears could stop. She knew she needed to find a sense of enlightenment so that the things she experienced would not break her heart but dismiss her fears. She needed to find her way back to that place where she didn't fear instability because instability and change are part of being alive. She knew she needed to find grace.
And now I cling to what I knew
I saw exactly what was true But oh no more.
That's why I hold, That's why I hold with all I have.
That's why I hold.
In order to find grace, she knew she needed to feel her way through each moment of each day. She needed to experience life as it appeared each morning. If she couldn’t be in Italy, she could go to the zoo. If she wanted to stop to buy a watermelon from a produce stand on the side of the road, then she would stop. If she wanted to stop and help a homeless person, then she would. If she passed her favorite sushi restaurant and had an instant craving, then she would stop and enjoy some sushi. If she couldn’t have romantic love, she could feel just as much love by taking the time to really notice everything around her – from the odd couple sitting on a blanket in a park and reading a book to each other to a small child eating ice cream and getting it all over his face without a care in the world.
I will die alone and be left there.
Well I guess I'll just go home,
Oh God knows where.
Because death is just so full and mine so small.
Well I'm scared of what's behind and what's before.
She knew that she couldn't depend on a GPS to guide her back home; she knew she had to feel her way home instead.
And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
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The prompt:
Odd couple, enlightenment, zoo.