Red to Orange

Look out the window. The sky is gray over the harbor. The sailboats sit so lonely, rocking there. I'm left alone with my thoughts. Alone again. It's a familiar spot.

My childhood bedroom had my parent's wedding furniture. It was the most amazing mahogany stained to a light oak shade. The wood grain moved and swirled. When I was alone, I'd run my childish finger along the lines that were my bed's headboard, imagining they were a road.

The villages, the people. I populated an entire fantasy world.

Everyone worked hard. No one was tired. They sang and smiled. Life was good. Life was more than good, but I didn't know that.

From village to village, I'd go to visit the friends that I'd made in each one.

They were life. They were living. Who was to say they were less real than the people in the next room were?

And in the villages, they couldn't see when in my mind I'd change the universe. On joyful days, I'd see the wood in shades of purple. On quiet days, it would be blues to greens. Rarely there would be yellows. On angry, lonely days I'd see it go from red to orange.

Red to orange. How I remember that feeling.

Anger is a lonely place.

--me strauss Letting me be