Out of the darkness came a little girl. She was huddled against the corner of a wall in what appeared to be a darkened alleyway and her pink dress stood in bright contrast against the deep red colored brick. She was crying and I looked around for her mother but she was absolutely alone---except for me.
She buried her head in her tiny hands, her chocolate brown hair falling forward like a curtain. Her little body shook fiercely and I was alarmed at the intensity as a wave of sadness touched me. I didn’t know what to and stood there looking around for a sign. I wanted someone else to appear and tell me what to do but there was no one. I was completely alone with this sad little girl.
I took a deep breath and was surprised by how constricted it felt. I felt my brow furrow as I put my palm to my chest. Instead of the steady in and out breathing, I could feel more of a bouncing--air moving in and out unevenly. My awareness suddenly sharpened and I could feel every thread of my black t-shirt breathing against my palm as it stretched over my chest. My eyes begun to feel heavy and sticky and my lashes were tangled together. I became keenly aware of the taste of salt on my lips and a deep fatigue in my abdomen. The sensation was familiar—it felt like I had been crying for a lifetime. I slowly reached a fingertip to my eyes to confirm that I too, like the little girl, was also sobbing. I was startled and looked around again as if the explanation lay somewhere outside of me but there was nothing and no one and I was left with myself and the inward feeling that everything was dissolving into the fear and sadness hidden away in my gut.
I turned my eyes back to the corner--my vision now blurry from my own tears--but the little girl was gone. Alarm shot through my body and I frantically turned around wondering how she managed to get past me. Had I lost her? I heard the pitter-patter of little feet and I turned immediately back to the corner and was met with a new sight. The dark alleyway was replaced with what appeared to be a deep forest. I was confused and scared but inexplicably drawn to the trees that stood before me—there was a path and I somehow understood that it was the only option despite the darkness and fear it seemed to shelter. This is where the little girl had gone and I knew I had no choice but to follow her.
I took a few tentative steps forward and caught a glimpse of an indigo blue glow that flashed further down the path. Despite my fear, I was drawn to it. It was the only light in the dark and so I quickened my step as I tried to reach the place where I had seen it. As I rounded a bend, I was stopped short by the sight of a beautiful pale blue bird sitting on the ground just off the path. It had been the indigo blue I had seen a few minutes earlier. I studied it, it was large, larger than any bird I had every seen. It moved slightly at the sound of my approach but didn’t seem to be scared of me. An odd sense of déjà vu overtook me—I felt like the bird had a name and that if I just thought hard enough, I could remember it. It seemed that this bird was perched somewhere on the edge of my memory, hanging on to a limb in my sub-consciousness. I gazed into its very human, very familiar, hazel eyes—I knew this bird.
It suddenly let out a strangled painful call that pierced my core as deeply as if the pain were my own. I looked around for what could have possibly caused it to cry out so suddenly and that’s when I noticed that the bird was in a cage. I stepped back and took in the view; the cage was massive, so massive that I hadn’t been capable of seeing it because I had been so focused on the beauty of the bird. I drew closer again and reached my hand out to slide it down the cool metal of one of the bars. It was rusted and the metal flaked off as I ran my palm down the length of it. The cage had obviously been there for some time. My gaze slowly turned towards to the floor of the cage, it held a crude bed seemingly made of feathers shed by the bird itself. I felt an eruption of compassion burst forth like a gust of wind reaching out to encourage the wings of the bird to lift.The bird seemed to feel this and turned in my direction, its feathers ruffling in response.
As the bird shifted, the cage creaked loudly and that’s when I noticed for the first time that there perched above it, appeared to be a tree-house. The little girl from the alleyway peaked out from the tree-house window, no doubt to investigate the source of the sound. She saw me and smiled and her little head disappeared back into the tree-house. I made my way over to the crude ladder leading up the tree and climbed up. She didn’t seem to notice me as I knelt down and took a seat next to the window. She was playing with a doll, and I was startled to realize that it was one that I knew. I sat there perplexed as I stared ay my childhood baby doll sitting in this little girl’s arms. I had given the baby doll the name of Melinda Manning and when I was scared, I used to go and sit in my closet with her. I looked around the tree-house and saw my one-eared stuffed bunny rabbit and my diary lying nearby. My gaze took in the walls of the tree-house; they were decorated with the first poems I had written when I was eight and with family photos of me and my siblings on Christmas at our grandparent’s house.
The little girl’s hand shot out suddenly and turned on a radio that was sitting in the back corner. Emanating from it, I could hear my mother’s angry words – a result of the fear at having to care for four children all alone; I could hear the slamming door--from the last time that my father walked out---echoing faintly in the background; I could hear the bickering of four children confined to a one bedroom duplex and finally I could hear the shaking of the pill bottle that I had reached for as a young girl to silence it all and rid myself of the pain of life forever.
I stood up quickly, backed out of the tree-house and hastily made my way down the ladder almost falling as I went. Once on the ground I turned to run but the underbrush and darkness didn’t seem to allow for any escape. The path that had led me here was no longer visible. It seemed as if I had somehow been contained in this forest circle and forced to confront the ghosts of the past.
I stood there with nowhere else to go, so I closed my eyes and tried to disappear. I felt a tugging on my leg and opened my eyes to see the little girl holding tightly and fearfully to my leg. As I gazed down at her, I finally understood---I was being held tightly by the suffering of my past. The fear in my gut softened and compassion for myself--and the little girl--rose to replace it. She gently smiled up at me, released my leg and climbed back up into her tree-house.
Acceptance for where I was took hold and I sat down on the soft moist earth. I looked around at the scene before me. I noticed the bark on the trees, the veins running through the leaves and the twisted formation that some trees made as they reached for the light. I realized that I was no different than one of these trees. I was starting to reach up out of the dark forest toward the light, creating my own unique path upward as life forced me on. I looked down at my feet and noted the leaves covering the ground, they were dried and brown. The old must be cleared away to make space for the new—death and birth—the continuation of life unbounded by my fanciful ideas or by the ingenuity of human hands.
As I continued to look around, I realized how limited my view of the future had become, and why I didn’t recognize the little girl as me or see the cage when I came upon the bird. I had spent so much time fearing my life that I managed to construct a cage that confined my future as dictated by the suffering in my past.The past becomes the present and the present points towards the future – this is the way of life.
The cage offered safety and protected the bird but in exchange, the bird was grounded and unable to fly. I gazed at the quiet solemn bird before me and the last bit of fear melted away. I jumped to my feet and as I rushed toward the cage, I caught a glimpse of the little girl coming down the tree-house ladder hurriedly, a look of excitement taking over her formerly sad expression.
I reached out and grasped the door of the cage and was shocked to realize that there was no lock.The door fell easily open and the bird called out. I felt the wind wash over me and the batting of great wings as the bird took flight. I turned to look over at the little girl, her eyes dancing with joy, as she rushed into my open arms and disappeared.
I awoke to the sensation of sunlight against my closed eyelids. I lay there for a second, unmoving allowing the warmth to seep into my sleep-stiffened body. I could hear the birds calling out excitedly and I smiled to myself, borrowing from their anticipation of what the day could bring.
I opened my eyes slowly and took in the view of a massive tree right outside my window. As I stared at it, I was overtaken with a feeling of profound peace and a sense of compassion for my life and for the world. I sat up, looked around and noticed how everything seemed to take on a new hue--a depth that wasn’t there before.
I reached my arms up in a long stretch and it was then that I noticed that my left hand was clutching something. I slowly opened my hand and there lying in my palm was an indigo blue feather.
*Originally written July 2011
