Etched in time

Etched

The shaking had stopped. Everything was gray.  The feeling of being inverted and then righted was pervasive.  I tried to remember what had taken place and where I was before and where I am now.  I realized that I was still in the same place, but everything had changed.

As I put the sketch back together it was like the lines on a paper that showed the structure and form of a place.  The outline, if you will, of a group of memories and experiences.  It seemed so complete and complicated and all the lines were clear.  It was the shaking that transformed the entire thing from known to unknown.  From clear and distinct, to grey and formless.  And yet, here I was, unmoved from only moments before, and yet completely transformed

The shaking was real, like any trauma is, and from side to side and front to back.  Never will it be as it was.  Only the memories and the picture in my mind remain.  The work and the path taken to form the vision of what was, will remain only in my mind, for no one will understand but me.  To them it is the story without the substance.  It is the appearance without the taste or smell.  They may have seen the sketch in some stage of progress and or some appearance of completion, and then the world was disrupted and the shaking will forever erase the picture of what was. All that was stable is gone and all that was strong and complete is forever removed, only to be made new.  And here, in this same place am I.   Am I to not start again? To be only a dot on the horizon, with no movement or form?  I must begin again, as to do otherwise is to be nonexistent.  And yet I am.

The picture you see is only of the two dimensional form.  Forward and back, right and left.  The control and action I can exhibit or influence are of limited behavior. You know nothing of my depth and flexibility, my color and my hue.  To you I am only of a staccato action and rigid shape, for you cannot see past the edges and the outside.  And yet there is so much more.  I was not aware of any of this either, until the shaking.  It was a violent act of cleansing and renewal, but I would not call it that when it occurred.  It was a violent betrayal of all that was stable and secure in my life, and then it was all gone.  I could do nothing to restore it, I could only begin again.  If I choose, and I do.

Do you remember your Etch-A-Sketch?  Was it red?  Was it Blue?  Was it your window to a world of challenge and wonder?  Did you ever clean the slate of your siblings’ labors so that you could start again with your own?  Did you forget to move the stylus to the corner so you could begin where you wanted or did you start where you were?  Did you cry foul when someone destroyed your hard work with no more care and concern than the tyrant child kicking an ant hill?  And yet, what will you do but start again?  Where you are and with what you have.  Will you see others with the understanding of their world gone grey?  Will you expect them to see yours that way?  Will you be disappointed to the point of your world going grey prevents your movement?  Start where you are, even if that is a place of rest sitting on the shelf.  Even that is to be found as a starting point.