The Front Porch of My Life
It was all out in the open now. Bared for all to see. I walked in to my deposition and saw her deep blues bleeding, her edges pierced, she laid there, leaking, from the table. Splattering. Pain. On the floor of my heart. Scattering. Shame. Stinging my skin. I wanted to pull her in close, collect her up in my arms, cover her under the shelter of my wings. Protect her from the blame, projecting from the walls. But like water spilled on the ground, she could not be gathered up again. My privately secret, vulnerably hidden. Journals. Containing. My entire interior ocean. Had been taken from her Place for Pain. No longer would she stay stuck in Dark Corners. In the refuge of Our Hebron Home. She had been moved out. Against her will. To the front porch of my life.
In the beginning of all of. This. I began journaling. After decades of silencing my interior voice, my interior ocean, of pain... and beauty. After a lifetime of shutting her down and turning her off. Ignoring her. Numbing her. Telling her to just. Sit. Down. And. Shut. Up. To just lie there, like a mat. And take it. In. And never. Do you hear me? Don't. Let it. Out. After years of hiding her waters in the hard stone walls of my heart, I had found. A stone removed. So that I could see.
My entire interior ocean. Welcoming me. To visit her beaches. Sit in her sand, pick it up in my hands, allow it to sift, through my fingers, shift, through my hands, of time, drift, through Faith, through a still small space, for Grace. While she quietly, gently, softly, to the rhythm of aloha, whispered in the air of my soul. And the ears of my heart, unlocked. Listening. To her waves, waving, up onto my shores, reaching, out to me, touching, me. With her pain. With her beauty. Beauty dragging me out into her seas. To taste. Salt. And see. The Good Word. On my lips. Feel. Healing. Waters. In my soul. Know. Deep blue. Depths. Waving with Mercy. Understand. Shining wakes. Of Wisdom. Rising. With the Sun. For me.
It took. Strength. To overcome my fears of drowning in the waters. Courage. Had to be worked up. To write down. Outside. What had been pooling. Inside. For so long. After so long. I was. Overcome. By an ocean of emotion giving motion. To pencil. After pencil after pencil as she shared with me her shame, her guilt, her pain. Beauty bleeding. Deep blue depths. On paper. For my eyes only. I promised her that if she would speak to me in pencil that would fade, with the sun, with time, and an eraser. That if she would give voice to our Deep Blues. I would keep them safe. I would keep them hidden. Covered for none to see. In journals. In the safety, in the security, in the refuge of dark corners inside Our Hebron Home.
My deep blue interior ocean would leak only, I swore, from my eyes, only. She had trusted that she would be safe. Sharing her voice. With me. Alone. She took the risk, took the plunge.
And now she laid, there, betrayed, her waters, pooling, still, on the table. Still staring back at me from the past with those deep blue eyes that leak. Still. In the present. From my eyes. Alone.
I stopped journaling for a while. My interior ocean and I, we stopped talking, for a while. After she had been taken from her Place for Pain. And moved. Against her will. It was too risky. Out there. Out where there was Room for Beauty. What we had been doing was just too vulnerable. Too unsafe. We might be seen. Heard. Known. Understood. So we stopped. For just a while.
I found, though. Being. Bared for all to see. Bares for me. Freedom. From hiding in Dark Corners. Baring Pain. Exposed. To the Light. Bares. Me. Sees me. Hears me. Knows me. Understands me. Baring Beauty. I find. Beauty. Finds me. Drags me. Frees me. Fills me. Until I overflow. My interior ocean overflows. Fills. Still. Pooling in Journal after journal after journal. Now bleeding blue. pen. Permanently. Releasing. Shame. And Blame. Guilt and Pain. Making Space. For Grace. From the wings of the dawn to the far side of the sea. Washes up on my shores, keeps washing up, in wave after wave. Here.
Where we swing, now, back to the past, with its endings, there, where we swing, now, out towards the future, here. Looking up. Looking out. My interior ocean and me. Us. Together. In these journals. no longer hidden. We now see. New beginnings. On the front porch of my Life, Baring Beauty.
©2017 JWhitman all rights reserved