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Empty Spaces |
She laid back upon the afghan she had spread out in the field and gazed into the velvet black night sky. A sigh which seemed to rise up from the bottom of her feet escaped her nostrils as she tried to empty out the worries of the day. If only Jeff could leave work in the office or find a position more to his liking. Would Cliff, her precious little boy now grown to manhood, find his niche? Would she again find joy in providing nourishing meals for her family and all the other acts of nurture that made up her days? But no. Don’t think like that. Now was the time to let it go, let it all go out into the empty spaces of the night sky. Let it go until the glowing specks of white, her friends the stars, were once again the center of her vision instead of the gloom of night. Let it go. Let it go. The mantra lulled her.And she dreamed. She dreamed of brilliant swirls of color, rushing noises and, mostly, of turbulent emotion. Feelings that forces beyond her control were inexorably shoving her along an unknown path. She searched frantically for something to hang on to, some sense of peace or feeling of tranquility. But she was swept along by some force larger than herself that she felt powerless to stop. She woke to find herself sobbing, her arms wrapped around the warm body of her sable collie whose coat was damp from her tears. As the tears dried from her lashes, the hazy blurs of light became her favorite constellations, Orion, Cassiopeia, the bears, familiar and comforting. She realized the empty spaces in the sky were not empty after all. The dark places between the stars was as necessary as the space between the notes to make music and the pause between the words that make it thought. The darkness of the night sky had absorbed her sorrow and transformed her pain into the glory of the Milky Way. No longer lost in the darkness, the stars lit a path for her to follow as she followed her heart. © 15 April 2002 Carol E. Burris All rights reserved worldwide.
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