“The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself” -William Faulkner
Have you ever played with glitter?
Scooped up a handful of itchy mini chunks that at first seem so harmless, so obvious and so endearing. Closed up the palm of your hand like you are zipping up the edges of your backup, careful not to let the pieces that demand to have a mind of their own slide off. Yet, no matter how tight you squeeze and you squeeze you find that without a doubt, pieces will always brush off the sides the way dust slips off the edges of antique furniture left for eternal time out in the mothball infested storage closest of your grandmother’s retirement condo.
You become tired of holding on, so you lift your palm up in the sky like you are preaching for a cause, and you let go. You spend seconds that turn into delirious months twirling around as the glitters falls in a sluggish rhythm, as if gravity is cutting you some slack these days, handing you one of those ‘pass go’ cards and honoring the fact that you have chosen to slow dance–alone–in this mess that you have created.
The glitter lands EVERYWHERE, as tiny of pieces of anything would. For those that have dipped their toes in glitter before, know what you are going through. What the clean up process is like. Days of mis-matching the patterns of your mind, interruptions of sleep, food that has lost its taste, distant memories that suddenly have been retouched. The chaos of life at its finest. For once you think you have picked up all the glitter, you watch as the daunting spring sun hits the planks of your wood floor where there you find, lingering, shinning pieces begging you like an eager baby tugging for more of your precious time.
You often regret playing with glitter. Maybe you should have listened to those old wives’ tales and stuck with something more durable and easy to fasten, determined to hang on–like bedazzled stones–or those Swarovski crystal tattoos that you used to slap on to your shoulder.
You often wonder if the glitter is here to stay. Accessorizing your black outfit when you go to lunch with friends, raising questions that bring answers leaving them with batting eyelashes and rolling eyes as you desperately throw out a plea, from the side of your smirk, that you just don’t know what to do anymore! Who are you kidding? You have come to appreciate and respect glitter. For there is tenderness in constantly knowing that though it seems gone, it will always be back.
You try to ignore it but it haunts you. Latches on to the creases of your sheets, stains unopened love letters, laughs between the lines of the pages of your favorite book.
It is not until the day that it gets stuck in corner of your brown eyes that you fully understand that this will always and will forever be a part of your life. Visible to all who enter your space and dare to dance with you, barefoot.
“You should make someone’s day by posting that phrase somewhere, I love you is back.“–Derrick C. Brown
@tthethingsilearned
