She had been staring at the blank screen of her notebook for a while now without typing a single line. She kept drifting off deep into her thoughts while listening to music she hadn’t been listening to in two decades. “Incredible how a simple melody can bring you right back to moments in your life as if you’re a time traveler with no power or control over the destination or the journey overall.” she thought to herself while shaking her head but eventually bowing it down in what could be seen as surrender.
“Life keeps serving you the same topics until you stop running from them”, she eventually acknowledged feeling a sting in her heart.
Her life had been undergoing quite some change in the last year and as painful as the events had been that had kick-started the transformation as proud and happy she felt about the changes themselves. She had finally found the courage inside herself to pursue her dreams, follow her passions and most importantly to own her feelings and act accordingly in every aspect of life.
After taking the dreaded but brave and long overdue action to take a step down and cut back on hours in her regular day job that had so long served as her defining anchor in life she had created the room for and given herself the permission to focus on her artwork. To her genuine surprise fate had been on her side during these times and by what seemed to be sheer coincidence she got in contact with an inspiring woman with whom she had bonded instantly and who as she later learned worked as editor in chief at a small magazine. They both shared a passion for art, especially creative writing and paintings and the two women eventually became friends. For her it also marked the start of small but regular writing jobs for the magazine which lifted her spirit and boosted her lifelong bruised self-confidence.
“Gosh I am lucky that it’s only Saturday night and I still have another day to finish my work” she thought while she looked at the blank page and the blank page stared right back at her with a certain sense of expectation. Inside she knew exactly what was holding her back, what kept her from writing the article about the artist’s exhibition she had visited last week. At the private pre-opening of the exhibition she had been invited to she had met an interesting person, a fellow artist and art lover. They had enthusiastic and valuable conversations about the paintings and sculptures shown there but what had left her in deep thoughts that night was the resemblance he had with someone she used to know. Someone whose memory she had put in an airtight box in a well-hidden corner of her mind and her heart for the last year as she had never been able to sort through or accept her ambivalent feelings towards him. “Maybe this is the final sign in red capital letters for me to confront my demons once and for all?” she pondered. Her hands formed fists involuntarily as if she wanted to crush her thumbs together with everything she felt deep inside. As if she wanted to raise them in an attempt to fight the memory of what she had felt to be condescending words of pity and farewell she recalled from their last interactions. “…There’s a thorn in my side when I hear my name. It makes me hide…”, played in her mind now. Her eyes no longer stared outside the windows but were sharp and focused, trying to burn holes through the thick purple curtains that she had left half open that night.
She got up and stepped outside the house and was surprised by the warm temperatures this late in the evening. For a moment she closed her eyes and took a few very slow and deep breaths and then she walked towards the canal close by her house. It was completely quiet near the water, oddly quiet. Almost scary as if she had stepped into a parallel universe where her neighborhood wasn’t a residential area somewhere in Amsterdam but a truly deserted place that didn’t exist. She sat down in the grass and listened carefully to the silence. And then it started. What she heard were the unspoken conversations she so wished they would have had about who they really are and who they could be as people. That for the longest time she was convinced she had seen her true self reflected in him deep underneath what was visible to the average person’s eye. The good and the bad. The sincere care and the malicious feelings. The prettiest parts and the darkest thoughts. The softest stillness and the rumbling rage. The warmest kindness and the most brutal cruelty. The longing for utmost closeness and the desperate need for ultimate freedom. The bravest soul and the most frightened coward. The ability to love unconditionally and the urge to destroy everything remotely beautiful out of crippling fear.
Two children ran by giggling and screaming and abruptly ended the silence. Her heart was beating exceptionally fast now. She got up and her eyes followed the boy and the girl running off into the night. And just as fast as they had appeared and stopped her train of thoughts they had been gone again. Her mind couldn’t make sense of what had happened. “Why would any parent leave their maybe seven or eight years old children outside unattended this late?” she thought to herself while she walked back to the house. The street lamps in front of her house shone a particular light on her plants outside. She also noticed that the moon was full that night which contributed to the unusual color pattern her plants appeared in during these moments. What a gorgeous artillery of green and colorful friends she had gathered over this last year. Her eyes stopped at the pink fuchsia that was in full bloom again this season. Under regular circumstances it should never have survived the frost during winter but for an unknown reason nature had decided differently and led the way for her to nurture this particular friend back to life with the support of sun, water and dedication. For the longest time it had served her as a symbol of hope. Skinny but undoubted hope for what they could have been and grown into together, had they only been given a chance.
“Burn! Buuurn! Buuuuuuuuuuuurn!” the little kids she had seen before yelled while running by her house with red lipstick smeared all over their faces. Their teeth looked bizarrely white in the particular lighting of that night and they again were gone even quicker than they had appeared.
For a few minutes she was plain speechless due to the absurdity of the events this evening before she looked back at the fuchsia. She admired its current shape in its stunning beauty, bravery and elegance while she clearly remembered the times it had been skinny, small, unprotected, dry and seemingly frozen to death. And just like that her heart let go of the resistance and she understood that there was never a chance they had not been given. There was never a road not taken. It had always been only her in that flower through fighting to survive the winter’s force. It’s always been solely her own unique potential and beauty she had sensed when she looked at it. It had always only been her lonely self seeing the true and mesmerizing colors of the sunsets. It had always been just her sitting on the table in the café along the beautiful canal deeply engaged in a perfect conversation playing out in her own mind. And it’s always been just a part of herself who she thought she had met in another person. There was nobody else. There was never a choice.
She saw a lighting in the sky and heard a thunder just seconds after when the warm summer rain started pouring down with force. For split seconds she could clearly see the faces of the boy and the girl in the grass field in front of her house when the brightness of the lighting collided with the darkness of the night highlighting their oddly white teeth.
She noticed she didn’t have her house keys. She felt her clothes getting soaked and her hair was dripping wet instantly but she knew that this was exactly what was supposed to happen. So she danced while the sky was crying. And the two kids were laughing in ecstatic joy not realizing they’re forever caught in the twilight of their existence.