Circles Spiraling

I walk along the shore looking in the water and all I see is sky—so much sky. Then a cloud comes over and my life feels dreary, dark, and lonely. The water looks murky, not clear and lovely, not like it’s mine anymore. Why’d that cloud take my view from me? What’s that cloud doing in my sky?

My sky. Who am I to own the sky?

I smile. I forgive the cloud, and I forgive me. Then I start over.

I walk along the shore picking up small shells I like. I admire the little ripples on them. They look like small half-circles growing ever wider, almost spiraling outward, growing as they move onward. I have a thought that I could learn from these little shells. I wonder whether I might be growing as I’m moving onward?

I look out over the water. Like my legs go all the way to the ground, the water goes all the way to the sky. I think how my life is like the water, never quite still, seeming clear, but only on the surface. I can see only so far ahead. I think I’m so easy to see through. I bet the water does too. I laugh to think we’re both all wet.

I walk out on the rocks at the question mark pier. I feel like the dot on the question. I feel like the wind that blows over me. I feel like a five-year-old turning circles on the playground. I look down into the water. It’s the clearest I’ve ever seen it. The clouds are showing respect.

I hold a small shell in palm of my hand, running my thumb over the small half-circles. Then I drop it to set it free, to watch it spiraling into the water. For one split second, I’m surprised, then delighted, by the circles that it makes on the surface. I drop another shell, then another, and two more.

All the circles interlace and intertwine. They’re all connected like lace. Somehow it reassures me as they grow wider and wider. I half expect to see them reflected in the sky, when I look up smiling.

I wish them well as they become part of the beautiful lake.

I walk back up the rocks of the question mark. Back to my world where I am still a dot.

My world. Who am I to think it is my world?

I smile. I forgive the world, and I forgive myself.

Then I start moving outward, growing to become part of the universe, like the other stars in our spiral galaxy.

hearttree

—me strauss Letting me be