The Loneliness Project – It is the absence of something, most of the time something we took for granted for a long time before we realize it’s gone. The swing settles in the family tree and only a random breeze will wake it from its slumber.
I remember the cool green grasses and clothes blowing across the long lines of rope making shapes and patterns like ghosts. I remember the simplicity of a great blue sky and a child’s mind full of opportunities.
There are so many times we fall off the swing, we skin our knees and assume that no one is coming with the clean washcloth or the gentle encouraging voice; we grow up. We become self-sufficient, we are taught to ignore the swing, the green grass and the great blue sky as if they were just childhood foolishness.
We barely realize they’re gone but the child inside us still yearns to stop, to seek comfort, to search with an explorers heart for wonders among the grass and secrets in the woods.
It is this loneliness, missing a child that always found time to play, to look up to the sky in search for something great. How I miss the swing and the tall willows throwing viridian shadows, I consciously aspire for my own resurrection.
The green lawn, the red and white shed before it was an eyesore, back when it had a purpose. We would have family dinners in the backyard, the kids would take orders and there was a barbecue fired up, it was summer.
I remember a large gathering of people, usually Easter, after church we’d sit outside. It was back before mosquitoes became the deadly creatures they are.
I remember plastic chairs and long white plastic table clothes, laughter and drama-it was a family gathering after all.
Now the family is scattered to multiple states. Many of the members I remember are dead, some still live near the same town but we are all separate.
I miss the bond of family, even if what I remember wouldn’t match reality. I”m sure there was more tension among them but I was young. I had the privilege to grow tired of having guests.
I would love to sit in my Aunt Ann’s kitchen listening to the old woman with stories and small talk. I would enjoy sitting in the living room with all the men watching sports and talking trash but time moves on and we don’t realize the connections or their significance in our lives.
The Precarious State of Loneliness
There are so many more like me…but we are all separate,
How uncomfortable it is, longing for contact
and yet unable to fathom its joy
To seek solitude while aching for connection
it’s the most difficult state as nothing seems to feel comfortable
time is slow and yet fast and random simultaneously
I have lived here
I have driven a long road, alone, missing others
and yet insistent on my own solitude
is it the soul’s nature of knowing its own state
but curious for another?
Fear keeps us
separate.
Awkward we are souls in transition.
I forced my way through loneliness
until I grew comfortable with myself
it was only then that I could fathom
interaction
and it’s joyful conclusion…
The colors of humanity
ebb and flow just like the seasons
but they are to be shared
not squandered
our voices are like the fleeting colors of autumn
how they linger among the tangled limbs
to grow as a wonderfully colorful
landscape
they become stories among grasses
ghosts in the shadows
until they settle on stones
and sleep like whispers…
we were never meant to be alone
we are all notes in a beautiful song
so when did we stop singing?
