Waking a sleeping fire

There are some feelings, which are dormant until they are sparked into life. Like jealousy and fear. You don’t realise they are so intense until they’re awake. Because then it feels that you’ve set a match on fire inside your veins.

It is said no to “do unto others what you don’t want others to do unto you”. To treat people as you would like to be treated, because even the nicest people have their limits. And we are raised to understand how people of different classes, backgrounds or even gender are so unlike yet so similar.

Women, for example, want men to cherish them as special and exclusive, just as men want their girl to bedazzle everyone but have eyes only for them. But at various points in time, each need to enter each other’s shoes to understand and to consider how they would act had they been on the other side.

Trust, just as love, is a two-way street. And it is earned through time, experience and mutual respect. Trust is what you convince others to be true, it is what allays their fears and combats the dragons that rise when one part of the pair is away. Love is how you show you care, so much that it is reciprocated.

And to harmonise it all into a healthy relationship requires that you also rid of any signs of selfishness that infect the invisible chain that binds a couple. It entails that communication is so strong that their eyes can speak straight to their heart. It needs love to roar louder than the demons.

All it really takes is a small act of kindness once in a while that will go a long way. One that will put the demons asleep and waken the heart. Because remember, the heart is a tiny organ that, however, sustains your entire being and it is on this that your very existence relies.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Dormant

Also part of Daily Prompt: Harmonize

The simplest of things, the greatest of impacts

It is common logic that if you don’t show appreciation to the persons who deserve it, they’ll learn to stop doing those things that help you out, that make your life easier. Because to be honest, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.

Like Margaret Cousins said, “Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary”.

Being told you matter, you’re appreciated, respected even, loved, is among the simplest yet most uplifting things you can hear.

It’s important to demonstrate you care, because people’s lives are based on – and often filled with – emotions. It’s how we feel alive. How we feel we matter. How we know that what we do has an impact and makes a difference. Being shown that you are valued is what will keep you going.

It doesn’t take much. It’s usually just a few words, a simple action, the smallest of deeds. But to the receiver, it means the world.

Different Worlds

There is a saying that opposites attract. Like the opposing ends of a magnet drawn onto each other.

But there is also the belief that people need to match in order to suit each other, to be able to communicate on the same level and see things in the same perspective.

That is not necessarily true.

There is a reason why The Lady and The Tramp worked out despite being nothing alike. Being from different backgrounds and levels, they found that they completed each other. Because having grown up differently, with other kinds of experiences and views on life, that “other”, the person so astoundingly opposite to you – as it seems – has an entirely inverse perspective. One that does not necessarily contradict yours, but rather, comes to complete it.

It would be truly boring if we all had the same beliefs, opinions and views on life. There would be nothing to push us to grow, to learn, to improve, to become better at life itself. There would be nothing to show us another side to reality and to dreams.

We need that ‘different’ in our lives because it is what makes us more unique.

And sometimes, it is through that contrast that we find something that completes us.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Magnet

The depth of forever

The message said simply “look beyond what you see”.

He looked to the left, to the right, in front, at the back, sideways, even upside down, but he couldn’t see anything. He began to think it was a trick. Or a prank. He grew tired and, instead, persuaded himself that there was nothing there. But, somehow, he couldn’t leave without discovering something. His godmother wouldn’t leave things so mysterious. There must have been something.

The boy stood there almost an entire afternoon, staring at the horizon and beyond, filling his mind with fantasies of what could have been.

But at that very moment when the sun began to fade, the sky turned orange. It separated the horizon into blue, caramel and yellow, playing with the few clouds that accompanied the disappearing light.

His entire body shivered, not because it was cold, but because of awe and amazement.

He stared at the light quickly fading, with the colours changing faster than you could catch your eyes blinking. It was a few moments in which he was lost, forgetting everything and everyone else and just staring into the infinity of a few minutes that seemed forever.

Sometimes forever is just a few seconds, she had told him.

He had finally understood.

Un-wilting

©MCD

The rose had entered her home on an anniversary. She was delighted because she didn’t expect he would remember, or more, that he would bring her something to celebrate. Instead, he surprised her with a beautiful crimson rose and a romantic dinner at a beachside restaurant.

Although every girl loves flowers, there is the downside that they don’t last too long. And unless you allow them to dry up so you can keep them a while longer to remind you of a lovely memory, most flowers simply wilt away after a few days. If you’re lucky, they may last a couple of weeks. But that’s pretty much it.

But this rose was different.

Five months later it was still there. Standing firm and tall in its square glass vase, not having dropped a single petal. The only thing that changed was that it’s colour had become darker.

She was amazed at how it persisted. And she boasted about it to her friends, secretly hinting that it was a sign of a strong and loving relationship.

He was happy to see her eyes glow every time she looked at the un-wilted rose. But he reassured her it did not mean that others wouldn’t follow. It was just that where they come with deep emotion, they survive for longer.

That’s usually the case with most things. When you take care of them they endure.

Tempest in a teapot

She entered the small cabin and all that she could hear was water running. It was a soft trickle, soothing and peaceful. The cabin was just as they had told her – in the middle of nowhere with branches rooting out of its top. But inside, there were no roots to be seen and you had to search hard to see the water flowing by the sides of the wall.

She had gone there looking for serenity. It was something that she found it very hard to achieve in her hectic and all-too-stressful life. But lately her mood had become even worse. She constantly felt weak and upset and, worst of all, alone. She needed some words of encouragement, something that would lighten her load, that would lift her senses.

That day she had been enraged by a disagreement she had with colleagues. And then everything went downhill. She felt as if the tempest that was brewing inside her had just tipped over the teapot and a storm ensued. She had to get away.

The cabin was quiet. It had been a long while since she had remained alone with her thoughts.

She could hear herself breathe, her heart beating, and her pulse slowing down.

She allowed her mind to drift. Images came into her head of what she had been through, of what she wanted to accomplished, of where she dreamt to be.

She knew he was waiting for her. And it was not fair that she shut him out. He was the one who could calm her storms. But first, she needed to face the tempest alone.

When she left the cabin, hours later, she felt different. Renewed, relaxed, reinforced.

 

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

― Haruki Murakami

The maze reshuffle

Andreas was trapped in a maze. He didn’t know how he got in there. Ever since he could remember, he was trying to find his way out. He was surrounded by high walls; by turns that led to dead-ends; by paths that kept closing in on him.

Every time he thought he saw some light at the end of a corridor, at a turn, something strange would happen, as if the entire maze would reshuffle itself.

And the way out changed location. Again.

Andreas grew tired. Nothing seemed to work. He would never get out.

He took a few moments to calm himself down. He looked around and saw the high green plant-covered walls stare imposingly down at him.

Suddenly a rainbow-coloured bird flew over his head.

Andreas stood up. That was his ticket out.

He raced behind the bird, eager not to let it out of his sight.

It seemed like hours he was running after his winged ally, when finally he felt the sun’s rays penetrating through the maze walls. And just before another rearrangement occurred, he was out.

He couldn’t believe it at first. He looked around and saw a large green field, hills on the background and fresh air breezing around him.

Then he heard a voice calling, “are you alright? Are you OK?”

His girlfriend was gently shaking his shoulders as Andreas revived from the hallucination. He had fallen from the ladder he had climbed as they were renovating their home. An intense disagreement they had made him slip off a step after she left the room.

The maze dream made him realise that things in life are always going to be complicated. And the more we search for answers, the more life will change the questions. So what we can do is try to worry less, argue less, stress less and laugh a bit more. When we calm down, we will find the way out of any situation.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Maze

Intruder alert

They creep in at night, under your sheets, through the barred or open windows, in the silence just when you think everything is fine. They disrupt your serenity and upset you without you ever truly comprehending why. And your mood changes indefinitely, depriving you from the ability to control even that.

Intruders are sneaky. They invade your mind when you least expect it.

They cause you to lose sleep and ruffle the sheets, tossing and turning in bed, waking up even more tired than the night before and much more depressed. But the worst part is, you can’t explain why.

Intruders plant thoughts in your head and make you anxious, jealous, skeptical, suspicious.

They cause you to draw scenarios that to an outsider may seem insane but to you, at the moment, may seem perfectly rational.

They result in you becoming a little more bitter, more cynical, more irritable.

And all you really need is some reassurance that you are not as crazy as you believe; that everything is and will continue to be fine.

You need that strong, warm embrace that will carry you into a peaceful sleep, forgetting everything else and enabling you to wake up and face another day stronger.

You want to get rid of those intruders. But sometimes you can’t do it alone.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Bitter

The palace of her heart

©Sandra Crook

It was when she entered that building when she truly became a queen. That was the day her beloved partner taught her to dance the waltz.

It was at an official ball of the French embassy to which he had been invited as an external collaborator. She felt it was an honour simply to have been asked to escort him.

But he wanted more.

He always did.

And after their majestic-fairytale-ball, he did what every little princess dreams of: he fell onto one knee and presented her with a little black velvet box.

She had officially become his queen.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Speak in any way

Your eyes can say things you refuse to utter. The things you keep sealed off in your silence. Those things that you slowly release with every sigh.

We can’t always comprehend what your soul is trying to say. That is why we need to speak. We need the voice to say what our heart fears to show.

Sometimes we need to shout, others to whisper; every form of communication, however, involves talking. There is often no other way of realizing what it is you feel, what thoughts you hide behind that veil of serenity. It is not easy to hear certain things. And often your fear overclouds what you utter. It is why it is said that you should not speak in panic or anger, for you do not know the (harmful) truths you risk saying.

But it is always best to say it. To look into the eyes you wish to address and truthfully pour out your heart’s concerns. It is the preferable and easiest way to avoid misunderstandings and lessen the path towards each other.

For the more you keep silent the more you push the other one away and the more your hearts drift apart.

The secret to any relationship is learning to speak to each other, even when we don’t want to.