Alchemic Verse

I have another two weeks where I am, with no plan yet on where next is. This should scare me into despair or drastic action, as it would have prior; though uneasily, I’m following instinct each day to find my feet, while leases prefer more lead time. The abundance of choice and lack of direction means the freedom to go anywhere – if only I knew where.

Yesterday and today I feel restless. My day job feels increasingly like whipping myself for the entertainment of delusional and greedy people, having achieved this fine role by demonstrating consistent insight and steady capacity for toil. I’ve found the sink where the only words heard are the ones people want to hear, and when every warning comes true, those same people seek to lay the blame on the neck of the messenger, flogged and losing her voice.

Yesterday, after ten solid hours of void screaming and receipt gathering, I needed to get out of the proverbial marina this rental represents, compelled by the need for movement. I picked a store something like 35 minutes away, a good drive to shuffle music, sing loudly, take in the sky. Having sized down considerably in the past year or so, with a combination of coming off of all mental health medications [with the supervision of mental healthcare professionals, this is not advice/a recommendation for anyone] assuming more deliberate eating habits, and incorporating more movement, I’ve found that the smallest things I still own roll and slide with extra fabric, including undapants, intentionally mispelled because heeheehee – undapants.

Anyway, it was finally time for some undergarments that fit – and the ladies I met that helped me were an absolute joy, endlessly encouraging, honest, and open. We laughed, danced to the store music, told retail horror stories, and I walked out with things I know I’ll feel gorgeous wearing for the first time… maybe ever, but definitely in more than a dozen years. I left beaming and laughing, with a recommendation for a salon that specializes in alt-hair and fantasy vivid color work nearby and a little extra hope.

Treating the inner child begging to stop for ice cream, I obtained a small vanilla ice cream cone, savoring the experience as one of the little ways to make the mental enclosure I pace more palatable. The parking lot featured a half dozen jewel-colored hummingbirds, darting from trumpeted bloom to trumpeted bloom to drink; I’ve only ever seen a hummingbird maybe once or twice before in my life, so I cannot express the degree of my delight.

My cone devoured, I exited the lot for the sweet drive home, and it began to rain. The songs changed to bittersweet, and at the most confusing roundabout I have ever had the misfortune of needing to navigate, there it was – a categorically enormous rainbow, in the precise direction of my travel back to the rental.

Pardoning the less than ideal photo – I was driving after all.

The trip back took me closer to its splendor, where the open sky and horizon showed me where the beams reached the earth, a reminder that the miraculous is ever-present and can come out of the darkest of cloudy days.

Today has been similar to yesterday; I painfully pace the enclosure. I’ll need to find some way after work finally defeats me to part the clouds again… she says, typing sideways on her phone from the borrowed couch, adrift in the internal storm, and exhausted from moving mountains.