Change the perspective

A storm was brewing. Literally. The weather was turning piercingly icier and the sun was in hiding. You could feel the wind changing.

But also metaphorically. People were evidently affected – they were colder in attitude too. Agitated, nervous, and too easily irritated.

It was all wrong. For no sensible reason.

So she decided to leave.

These are the best decisions; the get-up-and-go-on-the-inspiration moments. Because if you don’t think about certain things too much, they end up being the best decisions you ever make.

She acted upon the impulse to flee. And travelled all across the world to where the climate was exactly the opposite.

She didn’t exactly encounter a heatwave, but a much warmer weather, and a much kinder folk. People who had much less – of material belongings and wealth – yet much more heart and goodness. They knew how to enjoy the utmost of what they had, and to appreciate the instances, the smallest of heart-warming gestures, the gratitude of having even the slightest of everything.

If you step back from your own world and delve into someone else’s, perhaps you’ll just realise how lucky we are but never acknowledge it enough. Be grateful for everyday; for the goodness around you; and focus your energy on all you want to create, not on what you want to get rid of. Know who you are and what you want to achieve, but be careful who you choose to walk with in life, because in the wrong company you’ll never reach your destination.

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On the edge of heaven

©MCD

No matter how calm a person you may be, and how in order you may have everything in your life, there comes a time when you too erupt. It is simple human character. It’s impossible to be fine all the time. He knew it well.

She, on the other hand, was easily subjected to panic attacks and nervous crises. She was just more vulnerable to them. She stressed too much, overthought everything, and felt too deeply. She became too emotionally attached too fast, and it usually brought heartache and unpleasant thoughts. Thus leading to the aforementioned breakouts.

That day, was one such occasion.

He could see the storm coming in her eyes that morning. She was still trying to suppress the torrent that was in turmoil inside of her.

“What would you like to do today?”

He knew she was undecisive, yet always offered her the option. She valued that in him.

“Let’s go somewhere extraordinary”, she replied.

He smiled widely. Their sense of adventure and their passion for devouring every moment of life, filling their moments with unforgettable experiences, was what had brought them together in the first place. And he fell in love with her for that. Because she was different.

He knew just the place to go.

Somewhere to calm her storm.

It was more than enough. For when she viewed the mountaintop view of the sea and city in the background, she fell silent, in awe of the beauty of nature.

It felt as if they were standing on the edge of heaven.

And right there, it was impossible to think about anything that was troubling your soul. Nothing mattered. It was so vastly magnificent, that everything else – including your stress – seemed negligible.

Nature has its own way of soothing and healing you, placing your senses in order and restoring your hope.

Something ugly for something prettier

It usually starts quite suddenly, without warning. Clouds settle in, skies darken, lightning strikes and thunder rattles the ground. And it begins to rain. Ranging from light splatter to downpour, when a storm comes it is never pretty.

The good thing about rainfalls, however, is that they give life where it is most needed. Everything seems more refreshed, more rejuvenated, more revived after it rains.

The thunder and lightning may be scary, but the rainbow at the end makes it all worthwhile.

Life is like that too. With its ups and downs; its days of sunlight and days of rain. What matters is that you survive through them all. With people who will stand by you through all the good and the bad.

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

Surviving the jungle

It’s amazing how the smallest of things can trigger the biggest outbreak you’ve ever had. How all that sadness and anguish that for so long you’ve been burying inside of you can come trickling out like molten lava from a dormant volcano that suddenly erupts. It doesn’t really take that much in the end to make the world tremble.

Sometimes, no matter how much or how far you run, emotions catch up with you. And it usually happens faster than you think. And certainly when you least expect it.

So you’re up from the break of dawn one day sending emails and catching the wrong bus, trying to orientate yourself in this jungle we call world. You go about your business, suppressing any thoughts that might jeopardise this pretentious sanity that you demonstrate. And then suddenly, when everything seems to be going right for you, you take a left turn. You accidentally fall onto an old message. One that reminds you of tender times. Of just a few months ago when everything was so different.

And then it comes.

The eruption.

You begin to question everything.

And can forget nothing.

The tragically funny thing is that we always run back to times when everything was OK, forgetting the hardship that we once had to go through to get there. Because in the end that is not what matters. It is not so much the bad, but it is the good that remain imprinted in your heart. The hard moments are there to make you stronger, wiser and more resilient. They are there so you can learn to appreciate more the good times.

So all you really have to do is ride out the storm. The sun will shine again soon enough.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Set It To Rights

The tunnel

She first saw him on a sunny day, in a field strewn with golden hay. He gazed into her eyes with a smile imprinted on his face. She blushed and smiled back, eyes sparkling like diamonds in the sun. He came closer and let his fingertips brush against her arm. She chuckled and lowered her gaze.

Ahead was a tunnel. It mystified and intrigued them at the same time. It was one none had traversed before and it conveyed a sense of foreboding inside them, of exploring the unknown. It made them feel excited, sending shivers down both their spines and rapidly increasing the beats of their hearts. Their hands locked and they entered. Together.

The tunnel was as mysterious and unnerving inside, as it appeared from the outside. It smelled of roses and lilies and offered them food and drink and luxuries to fill their heart’s desire. At first. For later, no-one was to expect what would ensue.

It was surprisingly brightly lit for a tunnel. They realized only too late that it was their own glow that provided the light.

When the first storm came they had nowhere to hide. The tunnel had only one exit and that lay straight ahead. There were no sidesteps, no alcoves, to shade them from the wrath of a suppressed storm. Yet they never let go of each other’s hand. Even if they held on by a finger, they still held on.

After the storm, peace and calm soon followed. And everything seemed to return to the bright, tranquil path in which they had commenced their journey.

“I thought we’d never come back from that one.” This was the first thought both had, grateful they still had each other.

But they soon grew tired. Of walking. Of waiting. Of expecting. It seemed that they were looking for a way out that never came. It was not yet even in sight. And the storm returned. Heavier and more forceful than the first. Everyone told them to be aware of storms and the lightening, but no-one ever warned them of the thunder that came along. For the bangs were deafening and shuddered the very center of their hearts.

They survived yet again, but it was not the same. Something had been broken inside and they could no longer enjoy the tranquilities after the rain, as they first did. Yet they still held hands. Even as the tunnel darkened more and more.

Three years, seven months and 19 days they spent in the tunnel.

When they finally found the exit at the other end, they felt the last winter snowflakes splash onto their nose. It was a pleasant coolness from the humidity from which they emerged. They smiled, but it was a crooked smile. One almost forced. The melancholy released from their prolonged sigh wafted in the air around them. And in the second blink of an eye, the sun appeared from behind the clouds, restoring its light on their darkened eyes. But it could no longer retain the glow of their souls.

They had surfaced from the tunnel seemingly unscathed, but inside, they would never be the same again. They were not the same people they were when they entered. He looked in her eyes and searched for that initial sparkle, but it was gone. And she could no longer fix a smile upon his face. They could not recognize each other anymore.

And that is when it happened.

Their hands unlocked and drifted to their respective sides.

The pain in their heart was more than they could ever bear, but all they could do was struggle to go on.

Yet they always vividly remembered their tunnel journey with its memory forever engraved in their souls.

The tunnel experience made them stronger, for it too made them wiser in the ways of this world.

 

Also part of Daily Prompt: Use It or Lose It

Between a couch and a wild place

The leather couch used to squeak whenever he would slide down onto it. It didn’t anymore. You could even feel the small dent in the middle caused by all those people it had accommodated over the years. He could proudly or shamefully (it depends how you saw it) proclaim that he had grown up right there on that brown leather couch. In that down town office that was as modern as could be, with white walls that were repainted every five years and modern, funky furniture that invited the waiting patients and offered the illusion that they would take their troubles away.

“Relax”.

That was the first word he heard every time he sat on that couch. It was Mr. Waterman’s job, though, to say so. He needed his patients calm so that they could pour out their soul to him during the next hour and he could attempt to provide some solution, consolation or advice to their problems. And these were many and varied. But over the years he had heard a lot. Just not from one particular patient. This one had proven to be an especially difficult case.

Brandon would simply refuse to speak out, to tell the professional sitting across him what troubled his mind, what made his heart ache, where his eyes wandered when he stared at the horizon out of the window. Whatever the exhortations or appeals Mr Waterman would use, discreetly or not, Brandon did not want to speak. He simply sufficed to say that he had nothing to say. Mr Waterman even tried to entice him with milkshakes and chocolate, but that didn’t work even when he was a young child, let alone now.

After around twenty years of therapy, Brandon still had nothing to say. Yet, he was as confused and tormented inside as he had always been. A storm was still brewing inside of him. It was just silent to the outer world.

Brandon was a child that kept to himself. He became quite the introvert as a young man, although he loved to socialize and go out with friends. But when he returned home, he liked to stay in his room doing his own thing, whatever that was – reading a book, listening to music, surfing the web. And just like he disturbed no one, he himself did not like to be disturbed. His upper class parents believed he was a troubled child. They described him as “emotionally unavailable” and “awkward” and pleaded Mr Waterman to “fix him”. So Brandon grew up in the office of a shrink. Only none of them knew about it.

Mr Waterman watched Brandon grow from a quiet boy into an unsuccessful rebel, into an elegant and well-educated young man. From the few things Brandon had uttered in his office, the professional understood that the boy felt misunderstood, that no one could comprehend what he felt or thought and that is why he preferred to stay silent. So the hours were spent talking about culture, the news, and well, anything other than himself. The latest thing that made Brandon’s eyes gleam with excitement was a photo book of the most amazing places in the world that should be visited. The first-page inscription –a quote by William G.T. Shedd: “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for” – was what mostly inspired his heart to sing. But Mr Waterman knew that the storm would finally break out; he could see it the young man’s eyes, his gaze was looking further than meets the eye. It was obvious that he was in search of something out there that was not immediately visible.

And the storm arrived.

It came in the form of a hand-written letter and a tidied-up room.

I run because I no longer want to hide.
Because there is so much more out there to explore.
Because I want to move on with my life and do something substantial.
Because I feel I cannot reach my true potential if I am locked down here, without facing any real challenges or the endless possibilities that seem to be out there.
Because I want to be somewhere where people know me for me and not because of who I know.
Because I want to be heard without needing to yell and fight.
Because I want to rediscover the joy of Fridays and looking forward to the weekend.
Because I want to live and see places and not just hear about them from other people’s past experiences.
Because I want to find a house that is mine from the start, that I decorate and organise to fit my needs.
Because it is part of growing up and independence is a powerful thing to have.
Because I don’t want to waste time anymore, waiting.
Because I want to finally find and taste at least one happy ending.
I run because I am not running. I simply want to live.

Captain James’ Journal, day 134

I woke up to a stormy sea today. I almost fell out of bed and my back is so sore. I feel as if I’ve been carrying the weight of the entire boat on my shoulders. It’s cloudy outside and the sun can barely shine its rays past the thick cover of cotton surrounding it. As I climbed onto the dock I realized the whole crew was gone. They weren’t missing because they were still in bed. They were simply gone. They had preferred to jump overboard and be swallowed up by the raging waves, than stay onboard and fight through them.

It’s hard when you lose hope like that. When you simply surrender. It’s as if you’re giving up your entire life and everything that matters, simply because you have no more energy to fight.

I’m still struggling.

There are moments where I too wish a tidal wave would just gulp me and my ship away. But then I dream of something so much better. Of reaching a land as peaceful and as prosperous as I imagine it. And as I lay on my hammock, enjoying an exotic cocktail, a slim, elegant figure would approach. I would only be able to see her shadow as she would be standing right in front of the sun, her dark hair waving in the wind. I would be mesmerized from the first moment I laid my eyes on her. And as she came closer, I would be able to distinguish her stunning features. Her emerald green eyes, deep as the ocean itself. Her diamond smile that could bring light to even the darkest of nights. And that voice of an angel. I could stare at her for hours, days even. How fortunate I would be to have such a woman on my side. We would talk, flirt and laugh. And when night came we would salsa on the beach at the sounds of a live band. And hot as we were with excitement we would continue the interaction elsewhere. And sunrise would find us wrapped in each other’s arms, with only a white sheet for cover.

I think of this and regain some element of hope. Because without that there is nothing keeping me from walking the plank – even if I don’t see any sharks waiting for me on the other side. At least not yet.