Birds chirping outside my window reminds me of summer. The cool nights. The long days weary with sun. The plump smell of deep pillows of green grass and wet flowers. It's all found in that simple song.
It's moments like this with my window slid open, the view of the whole sky beyond my pale seashells and potted plants resting on my window seal, the soft waft of subtle spring drifting innocently into my hair, that I am reminded of something stirring from my childhood.
Childhood...
Today my mother called me her Songbird. It's been a good while since I've heard that name from her, or anyone really. My mother has always called me her Songbird. Ever since I could catch a tune I've been singing and she's been calling me that. Today she talked about the way I'd sing alone in the big living room swallowed up in a flowery couch until I couldn't anymore. I'd just sing. So tiny, but so full of song. The sun would set and a song would still be escaping me. The innocent satisfaction softly (and sometimes not so softly) singing brings me is simply astonishing. Especially when you can feel it humming inside of your chest, like you're heart is singing along with you.
I've been thinking a lot lately.
I do that.
But these days I'm doing more than thinking about the songs birds sing or the dance trees move with. The simple pleasure of mindlessly thinking whilst embracing the world around me has disappeared since I haven't physically written in a book for months. I used to sit outside, even when it was crisp or cold and I would wrap myself up in writing. Mindless writing, too. The kind that spills on the crisp pages and drips into the seams. I miss writing so much.
That's really why I'm here right now, typing in a thoughtful manner, not like I used to write.
I think too much, these days. Just minutes ago I was slipping black pants over my legs when the feverish impulse of writing overcame me. The thought of Vincent was in my mind, his words about always "striking the iron while it's hot" ran through me. I stopped. I dragged my laptop to my desk. I sat in my pink IKEA chair and I breathed.
I exhaled.
Think about it, I told myself.
You cannot let inspiration go when it catches you--it has a lot to do and you might as well help it along! What could it hurt? You only regret the glimpse of inspiration you didn't pay attention to in this riveting world we often forget.
Inspiration is compelling beyond reason, isn't it?
But on another note, there is an unspecified ticking in my close vicinity and I am unsure where it is coming from, what it is, and, of course, what it means. My suspicions tell me it is my laptop, but my soul whispers it is my heart popping for who knows why. I search high and search low, my right ear resting on the warm bed of letters, then my left and lastly my eyes linger on my chest.
Is it the delectable wind rattling inside my lungs right now?
Perhaps it is a song unearthing itself from my defining childhood habits.
Is it dangerous? I wonder.
I am constantly caught between aching to hear music, the same songs I listen to every week, and merely listening to the beautiful sounds nature provides me with. They are far prettier songs to hear, but much harder to sing, I admit.
Do you see what I mean by thinking too much?
I wept today.
I weep quite a bit these days.
But today was a little different. It wasn't about anyone really, but it was about me. I think it was an unearthing of sorts, a catharsis of the potpourri of emotions bursting from within me. It was almost like I couldn't help it. The tears simply slid from some patch within me that was ripping at the seams for quite some time and I didn't really care that people were beside me. I wept in the chapel with a lovely temple dedication bringing such comfort and truth to my aching soul. A clean white handkerchief was clenched in my hands resting properly on my lap, but I could not use it to wipe my warm tears. It was too pure. Again and again my hands smeared the flowing tears from the corners of my big eyes and soft cheeks. It was exhausting. And riveting. Cleansing, more like it.
I strangely miss crying.
The secrets my tears could tell you about my soul if they would only talk. But they won't, for now. For now they know there isn't a soul present that wishes to truly hear the secrets festering the typhoon I call my soul.
I think the tears that fell today did tell me something. It wasn't a secret, per say, but it was devastatingly truthful.
I am waiting.
For what you may ask? Well, that is the glorious part.
My best friend.
Not the one I already have, the one I call my sister, or my books, or my entire family for that matter.
No, this person is different.
He is the one I'm waiting to spend every day with, the one reminding me every day why he is my best friend and why he stays by me when so many others never wanted to.
I'm waiting for the moment when I can stop by him, our hands dangerously close and as I look into his eyes and discover something I've never felt before--I'll look at him the way I've always wanted to be looked at and then I'll say, "What is it you see in me? Why don't you keep walking the way you were before you met me? What made you stop and say hello forever?"
And then the words that follow, not from my lips, but his will change so much about the world I though I knew before.
I am not afraid of walking alone, you know. I've done it my whole life and even though it's young and I hardly know what life really tastes like, there is a deep penetration, a rooted substance within my soul that tells me I have waited longer than most people to feel even the tiniest taste of real love, life that is scintillating without lonely sunrises. It is there whispering to me every moment of the day and night.
I am not confessing that this life does not already surprise and uplift me.
I am not forsaking the song that is already stirring within.
I am merely putting it down on paper that I am not afraid for the life that is waiting for me as anxiously and preciously as I wait for it. There are simply songs I have not yet heard or sung, dances I do not know exist yet. But, they are there waiting for me.
The tears didn't tell me what I already knew--they gave to me a song that I needed more than anything.
A soft song. A quiet and gentle melody.
Hope.
-k.p.b.
"Suite Bergamasque L 75: Clair de Lune" Finghin Collins (Composed by: Claude Debussy) A song that does not disturb nature, but rather softly and gently runs through it as if it was begged to belong there.
