Dear universe,
Our conversations lately have cooped up somewhere in the cerebellum. It's true. I haven't written you in over a year, and what we discuss often gets benched. I had not realized that this was that big a problem until now. Adjusting to teaching a full load of classes sent me into a daze. Once the semester ended, I found myself exhausted. Though I was happy to see the semester end, I also started to feel pangs of intense sorrow. I figured it was exhaustion; I just needed some sleep. So, I tried my best to ignore it. We can't always know what's wrong right away.
This morning, there was a baptism at church. As the priest talked about the joy of bringing new life to the world and giving this child a new beginning, I was washed over with sadness. It was strange, and unsettling. Mercifully, it went away as quickly as it came.
Later today, a little girl approached me in a craft store. She interrupted my search for gold paint to explore a nearby product display. From the corner of my eye she looked familiar to me, little dark curls and a mischievous smirk. Then, I realized that she was the child of a friend of mine, who I had not seen in a long while. They share that same smirk. I talked to her mother, who announced that she was expecting a second child. This was happy news and while I am genuinely happy for her, another pang of sadness hit me suddenly. I did my best to hide it.
It was strange for me to be so upset by something like that. I avoided thinking about it. I spent the late afternoon painting a bathroom wall. As I sponged the gold paint into a scallop stencil pattern, I found myself relaxing into the task. I didn't have to think; I just had to paint. I noticed that the sponge often left a circle in the middle of each golden scallop, making them appear to have one eye. "Cyclop scallops, heh," I thought. I played with the sound of those words: cyclop scallop, scalloped cyclop, etc. Then came the big a-ha: This was what I missed- producing creative work. The feeling of bringing something new to the table was something I really missed.
As I washed paint from my hands earlier tonight, I noticed a gold fleck on my forehead. I thought about removing it, but decided to leave it alone. I had been baptized, and it was time to start again.
Salvation in scallops,
My
