Beyond the days
A creation story
Visual break between black and white
Creations are versatile
Only a few endless months, that arose and vanished without anyone noticing, took us to acquire identical routine, repetitive behaviour and similar mind-set. Besides the common, and rightly so, a phrase that each new day shall be perceived as a miracle-which I would not even dare to disprove-through the following passage, I should point on something more detailed than a rising sun as a general expected fact.
Days are passing near my kitchen window. As I remember, no longer confident in my clear consciousness, days pass full of repetitive movements that cause repetitive reactions. The wind comes from the south-the sky is high and lucent blue. And snow is melting. The wind is terse, the wind that comes from the north-the sky is melancholically grey. And snow comes along and covers garden roses. But day after day, despite wind direction, the hill across my window is full of an amusing cluster. Day after day, sleds and snowsuits, and painted checks, and lost in a crowd mittens fill up the hill.
Since the first lockdown in March I moved my books and papers from the office and occupied the dining table in the kitchen. At first, I only stayed for days when it was gloomy outside. Then, I abandoned my little office with an excuse not to be alone, to see playing children outside and stayed until now. I say it could be that I avoided complete solitude; yet, there is one more reason. A kitchen in the house of my childhood was always an attractive place for a child returning from school. Homework truly had never felt like a burden when it was shared with the company of my mama and her baking. Work now barely feels like an unpleasant obligation when it is done at the spot where scents are attractive, and coffee is always fresh.
Next day. I move to the bedroom. My mind aches for changes-my house allows them. How humble this request sounds comparing to requests I forgot I had the courage to have.
On the driveway across the street, where a melting scoop of snow runs down the asphalt, a pair of pink rubber boots on two small feet keeps jumping up and down, and up and down again. My boots are suede, and I bypass every paddle on my way. Would I join pink rubber boots if my pair was of appropriate material? I doubt so. To intervene with the first delicate touches of spring in a child’s heart would only mean to ruin that experience. However, I make a promise to teach my kid to respond to spring’s first signs. I keep with my stroll and hold a conversation with a boy to be born yet. There, spring is just around the hill, you hear? We wish to believe so, and every other day that will not support that excitement, we simply will avoid paying attention to it. Spring is near, and azure in the sky that reflects in every brook, and muddy dogs' paws only prove it. I wonder if I am the only one who puts anticipation and desire before reality. The baby kicks inside my womb. I suppose I am not the only one. Hills are still covered under layers of snow. Last spring only was a messenger, only hint of slight development, only inevitable prediction of what we are to think, feel and expect this year. In its calamitous panic, its hopes for a sooner and better outcome, only a few noticed its arrival. Now, all I have is time. Sunrise exchanges obscurity of the night; from standing noiseless to the necessity to relocate around the house. Do you still dare to plan?
I dare to suggest those feet in pink rubber boots that belong to that young heart dare to.
My house is where each corner offers different activities. And yet, besides days when thoughtfully chosen details resonate in my heart with a sense of comfort and satisfaction, there are days when the pressure of similarities becomes unbearable. It is more unbearable because of the inability to change it. I can move the couch to an opposite side of the room, and purchase a new set of coffee mugs. Nevertheless, it is complete understanding and humble acceptance of the reality that separates and differs this year from the last one. It is motionless now to extend where it is comfortable. It is a stillness to be grateful for, and yet it evokes desires to experience an airplane flight, a touch of hotel sheets, my feet walking on streets of a foreign city, my eyes looking and finding my reflection in displays. It is the feeling we no longer dare to bear inside. It is something we dedicate to diaries, ask for in a simple prayer, and share among each other. But, to dream, to even dream of planning, causes too much anguish.
The sky is clear and cerulean. Birds keep dashing through the only cloud above my head.
Endless months are coming to the end.
I declared it as clear as possible, hoping that my mind would believe, my heart would rejoice. Alas! My mind is challenging to trick. It knows that despite the fact the hill across my kitchen window will change colours due to seasons, endless moments starring at it, ah they will continue. Someone told me once that Shakespeare wrote "King Lear" during a plague.
I thrive on that knowledge; I discipline muse and inspiration to seek and find the right words in that simplicity that is available through a narrow kitchen window for now, and God knows for how long yet to come. Seek and find it, I say, in melting snow, withered, wet grass, in a view to the hill that looks balding now when half snow is gone. Somehow children still manage to slide down! Seek and find it in trees that will bloom, and roses that will be unwrapped, and grass that I will put my child on, fresh green grass that will smell, it always does, like reconciliation between a man and God, between human nature and nature of the lucent sky, and fields and everything else that breaths. Seek and find. I seek. I find.
P.S. I wrote this essay exactly a year ago. I was pregnant. Life seemed motionless due to all restrictions. But, despite uncertainties that shook our world last year, spring still came.
It comes back no matter the obstacles. Thus, I hope this little piece of collected thoughts and observations would bring some hope and spring to your heart, dear reader.
With hugs,
Marie K.
