The Sadness arrives in sets, like waves at the oceanfront.
The first wave startles me, yet I keep my footing strongly in the soft sand.
The second wave arrives just in time to throw me off balance.
I recover again until the third wave knocks me down and pulls me under.
“You know, most people drown in 3 feet of water,” the nurse’s query echoes in my head as I work to get my bearings in the salty water.
I struggle. Rolling, turning, twisting, I try anything to regain my sense of where I am. Of who I think I am. It is only when I stop the struggle that I allow the water to wash over me, through me, to cleanse me. The sand gently picks off the dead skin; removing what had never really been.
It is only in my surrender that I am able to rise up, just as the Osprey – the water phoenix – and shake off all the water that once weighed me down. I am renewed. Reborn. Cleansed.
It is then that I look down and realize I was in a puddle of water. The waves were ripples from the drops of rain as they fell gently from the sky above.
I stand now, seeing more clearly than before. It’s all in the perspective….
Namaste.
Photo Courtesy of Cindy Shryock Sanderson
