Paying close attention

I met her four weeks ago, but we only got to talk today. She is only two years older than me. Today, she’s wearing dark blue, very high heels. Their color match her suit, which hugs her body tightly. How she sits without the fabric ripping is beyond me. She drives a 2019 Mercedes-Benz and lives in a villa. She has a PhD and works in three colleges. She is a mother of two. She is constantly on edge – literally she sits on the edge of the chair. Her phone is an extension of her arm. And she has managed to break herself up into small parts. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to accomplish the hundreds of tasks she feels she must accomplish each day. ‘I can’t allow myself to be weak,’ she tells me.

‘And what about you?’ she asks me.

Me? Oh, I write about grief.

I sit for hours on end in that in-between space – the stairs of my garden – and watch our cacti. I pay close attention, because I don’t want to miss that one day a year some of them bloom.

I pay close attention, because I want to catch that rare, spontaneous smile on my daughter’s face; that which lights up her whole being. In the evenings, I like to talk to Bastet, the cat, and give him Reiki. I like watching how his eyes half close and his whole body sinks into mine as he lets go and gives in. At night, I wrap my legs around my partner in bed, and tell him I feel his love deep inside my belly. In the middle of the night, I usually sneak out of bed to read and write in my journal. I am enveloped in sadness, yet at the same time I am in awe of the littlest miracles that make up life.

‘I’m working on my second book, and trying to figure out my life,’ I respond with a smile.

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