Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Shadows are funny things. They're very much like clouds in many ways. We can almost form them into anything we want just by sheer will and creative use of imagination. Monsters, demons, ghosts, goblins, spirits, bunnies, spiders or ducks; whatever we wish is there. Just as insubstantial as the mist above our heads, yet much more within reach. Perhaps that is why we fear them more than any brewing storm, no matter how dark and ominous it appears.

So what happens when we see the people we hold dearest as those very shadows? Lurking and looming before us? A familiar face, a comforting embrace surrounding us in that very darkness that we are trying to illuminate. These are the shadows that we seem least inclined to battle. The soft, gentle whisper "leave the light off".... consciousness rising and trying to scream through the muffling void of fear - only this time, not fear of dark, but fear of loss. Change. Death. Hence the phrase "go towards the light".

How is it that that which we seek is both our greatest enemy and yet our most freeing force? It loosens the bonds that holds us bound to that dark space, capitulating us into a life more able to entertain the notion of health, happiness, longevity and independence.

Yet I sit there, quivering before it, pleading with every ounce of my being for release - pleading with every painful tear and scar that is the patchwork of my emotions to stay. Too many of them, these shadows. I am confused by them. They are all so interconnected and entwined I can no longer tell which one is this one, which one is that one.... what is furniture, what is a dress, what is a mannequin, what is real, what is myth, what is truth, what is a lie.

I am crumbling somewhere inside. Is it the beginning of an end to which there will be a new beginning, with more fresh air to breathe instead of this staleness that has become repetative and redundant throughout my existence? Or will it be another trap, burying me alive within myself, deeper and further away from the humanity that I am so desperately attempting to uncover, rediscover?

Again I am tired. I peer at them from where I sit and contemplate. Is it worth all this energy? I think about leaving.... The fighter in me wants free, but I'm not sure anymore exactly what it is I'm fighting - other than myself.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

It's been a few days since I've posted. It's amazing what can happen in a few days.

I've taken the first steps towards what appears to be one of the darkest corners of the attic. Bravery is an odd thing; not at all what it's made out to be in movies and novels. A contradictory combination of fear and determination, a confusing desire to both jaggedly dawdle forward and bolt in immediate reverse.

The shadows loom before me growing and stretching - as shadows do when you move. Looking at them curiously, I wonder if there's truly anything to be afraid of. They're shadows after all, right?

Why is it those things that have so little substance, so little physical ability to sway us have so much power? Why do we give in to ghosts of past, efemoral beings of our subconscious? Hauntings from our childhood, altered reality from adolescence, vision marred in young adulthood - a lifetime of scars that open and ooze whenever we get too close.

Avoidance is so much easier. Yet here I stand, poking and prodding at my fears. I am weak. I tire and give in too easily. Who thought it was a good idea to put a brave heart with a weak mind? Or maybe it's a brave mind and a weak heart? I want to crumble where I am instead and leave this battle. I want no more scars. I want no more tears. I want no more shadows that I will have to face and clean out of this place before I die.

I want sunshine, yellow and bright streaming in through large windows; I want to smell flowers wafting in on the same breeze the shifts the gauzy curtains; I want to revel in the warmth of an embrace..... instead there is dust. There is damp. There is mildew and mold. The glass to the only window is smoked and nailed shut. Even in the brightest of sun, no light uncovers the mystery that lies here. Complete clean out and reconstruction is the only thing that will change the atmosphere of my mind.

I wish someone were here to hold my hand.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

I like euphamisms and analogies. It's probably the creative writer in me.

Imagine, whether you've truly got a kookie old grandmother or aunt or you don't, what would it be like to go up into her attic and snoop around for all the old treasures that must be stored up there. I mean, come on - she's 80 or 90-something years old!! There's bound to be something interesting!!

She may even be an anal retentive old bat, having everything labeled and stored in a bunch of those new Space Bags. Doesn't leave much by way of mystery, does it? Even so, without the dankness, without the cobwebs, reading the descriptions on a little piece of gluey backed paper, the writing careful and spidery, more than making up for the critters lack of existence; there's an air of sobriety yet mounting excitement.

Attics are not typically well lit. Perhaps a solitary bulb to keep one from tripping over forgotten items moved to make way to access another. In the corners, where illumination barely has a grasp, shadows wrap around a box, a trunk, or some antiquated chest of drawers that was meant to be refinished - 50 years ago. Those same shadows breathe life into the inanimate. Adrenaline begins to pump, instinct causes a shyness away from the non-existent ghosts, but you must know.... what really lives - or lived - in those shadows? The mystery awaits while you stand there, gawking, weighing, deciding, fearing, and wanting. The wanting ... do you really want? Are the frights that await in those corners more powerful than the knowledge they guard? How long it seems to take to think it over......

Questions plague our minds and sometimes our lives. Do we dare truly seek the answers, or is it easier to stay in the light, avoiding for as long as possible those crevices which we have yet to venture into full of unknowns - real, imagined, causes and effects, created or made? I dare.. care to follow me?

MutherLuv