anxiety & radiance

Anxiety & Radiance

Something is coming unglued. The tapestry of joy is unraveling. The chocolate pudding of happiness has flopped upside down on the floor. Language has taken refuge in an undecipherable code and my mind is dissolving.

I walk out the door in this frame of mind and cut across the lawn to my car. A woman is passing by on the sidewalk with a toddler beside her, no more than two years old, her small self in faded jeans with elastic waste band, a polka-dot blouse with frilled sleeves, and tiny white tennis shoes; fair skinned with stunning blue eyes, short platinum hair with a pink bow in it, a pine cone in each hand. Walking is still a learning experience for her, and when she looks up and sees me she stops dead in her tracks, drops both pine cones to the sidewalk, and throws her arms open wide, her face radiant.

I stand there grinning, the darkness in my mind wiped out, while her mother looks from me to her daughter and back again, her face full of anxiety.

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