Quiet Hero

I came across this poem, in honour of soldiers’ wives, written by Kathleen Mills of Savannah, Georgia.  It was published in Canadian Living magazine this month, and as I read it, I thought about all the people who are separated from their loved one, because of work, circumstances, sickness, death……and who carry on with the joy of living despite the void created by the One who is away.   I don’t know any military families, and those husbands and wives left behind have great courage.  So do those whose loved ones are miles away in hospital, or receiving cancer treatment, or starting a new job in a new city far away.   I think of my parents in the final year of their married life, who were separated because of illness and hospitalization and eventually death, and who’s love for each other shone through so bright.   I wish I could tell them how much their life as a couple brings meaning and peace to my own life now……So on this Day of Hearts, I thought I’d reproduce the poem here to share with you. 

QUIET HERO

by Kathleen Mills

She wakes very early, he’s leaving today,

She will stand tall and proud as he’s walking away.

He glances back warmly at his children and wife,

Knowing they will bravely carry on with their life.

Her strength and her courage only one understands,

He is walking away with her heart in his hands.

For he knows that without it he would be lost,

But they both know freedom comes at a cost.

She walks away holding her children so close,

Swallowing tears for the one she loves most.

This quiet hero does not walk into war,

She soldiers on behind her front door.

She will move through her life the wind at her back,

Determined to keep her family on track.

Her tears fall in silence while she lies in her bed,

Her fear is right there but nothing is said.

She will ask that no medals be pinned to her chest,

Her husband’s safe return her only request.

Few understand her commitment, her life,

She is the quiet hero, the brave Soldier’s wife.

 

(print by Alfred Gockel at Art.Com)

May those you love know that they have your heart……..

Love, Chantal xoxoxo 

My Kitchen

Thank you, Polar, for tagging me with this one……

I’m supposed to describe my kitchen in rhyme, or set it to the rhythm of a song or however I feel I can accomplish it.   

Sorrow ( http://sorrow11.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/my-kitchen/)  and Jazmine (http://jazminesgarden.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/my-kitchen/ )  have done a marvelous job with this, as have Polar (http://2polar.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/57/)  and Hawk (http://whatisitabout.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/my-kitchen/) .

Here is my attempt, set to the Sound of Music’s “My Favourite Things”:  (ahem….)

Fridge magnets, piles of books, sitter’s phone number

Coffee pot, toaster, and barely-used blender

Sauvignon blanc and Italian Red

Sometimes my kitchen is better than bed!

Overbaked muffins and mushy egg noodles

Burnt Hamburger Helper and microwaved Zoodles

Clean as you go or you’ll never get through

The pile of dishes that makes one feel blue

When the bills come,

When I’m lonely,

Or I’m feeling mad

I simply remember my mom’s recipes,

And then I don’t feel so bad…..

Writing and blogging and feeling the music

Making creative juice out of a lim-rick,

Listening to P’s day or maybe G’s woes

My kitchen can tie all our hearts up in bows

Alone at the counter, eating and reading,

Cranking the music and like a fool, dancing

Chasing the blues with some warm comfort food,

Hot soup or pasta can only be good!

 With some patience, lots of humour

With much love and laughs

My children and me, living all that can be

In my kitchen so full of gaffes!

Polar:  the turn-around time on this tag was a little longer wasn’t it!  

 I have to say that when I initially sat & wrote this post, it was quite depressing, as I don’t really like my kitchen.  It’s a standard, square apartment kitchen with bad lighting.  As I’m not a great cook, I find I don’t enjoy doing kitchen-y things.   I fret about my eating, I worry about my kids’ nutrition, I stress about planning balanced meals……So I’ve been spending the last few days observing and thinking about what I’m doing in my kitchen that makes me feel good, and I realized that I do alot in here that I like:  writing, enjoying music, listening to my kids’ play-by-play of their adventures.  I experience alot of emotions in my kitchen, some bad, but mostly good.   And I find that loving my kitchen is alot like loving myself:  I’m imperfect and need improvement, but when I find that missing ingredient, it turns life into Life.

(I don’t know who to tag, so if you feel like sharing your kitchen in my comments section, please feel free, or if you have a blog, write about it and trackback to here).

Love, Chantal xoxoox

 

100th post

To mark this little milestone, I thought I would reproduce one of my most favourite poems by Rumi (thank you, Maha, for turning me on to his poetry).   

If you love, if you are loved, if you want to be loved, I dedicate this to you. 

Music Master by Rumi

You that love lovers, this is your home.  Welcome!

In the midst of making form, love made this form that melts with love for the door,         soul the vestibule.

Watch the dust grains moving in the light near the window.

Their dance is our dance.

We rarely hear the inward music, but we’re all dancing to it nevertheless,

directed by the one who teaches us,  the pure joy of the sun, our music master.

When I am with you, we stay up all night.   When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!  And the difference between them.

The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.    They’re in each other all along.

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.   We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.    We are pain and what cures pain, both.  We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.

I want to hold you close like a lute,  so we can cry out with loving.

You would rather throw stones at a mirror?   I am your mirror, and here are the stones.

 

 

Talk To Me

It’ s my turn tomorrow at Sunday School  (I don’t say teach, ’cause I’m not a teacher), and I’m preparing the material to present to the children.  Tomorrow’s theme is “God Hears Our Prayers”.   One of the questions I plan on asking the kids is how and when do you talk to God?  And before I can ask them that question, I have to be ready to back it up with my own answers.   Because kids like to throw your questions back at you, kind of like Jesus did (ever notice that, how Jesus often answered questions with a question? It probably drove his friends nuts….).  So you must be prepared and be sincere, or else you’re left stammering and stuttering something silly, and then you lose your credibility in front of these little people who have very good hypocrite detectors.

So I was thinking about that, how & when do I talk to God….for a while, I was letting my spirituality take a back seat, so I wasn’t doing much talking.  Things happened in my life that pulled me away from feeling I belonged, I saw things happening in the world, and as much as I can separate God from what organized religions claim and do in His name, as much as I know that what goes on in the Vatican is far removed from the simple truth of Love, I felt I needed to step back a little.  I didn’t feel God was hearing me, and I figured why bother talking to someone I don’t feel is near to me anymore?  In retrospect, I know that it was me who was pulling away, not the other way around.   After years of feeling that God lived in me, I began feeling abandonned.  I didn’t want to break all ties, so I intellectualized my spirituality.  I went through the motions without feeling anything.  But I didn’t talk to Him like I used to, if I prayed it was prayers that I recited at church, along with everyone else, or I would ask for patience and wisdom when I would hit a roadblock as a parent.   So I was basically just talking to Him if I needed something, or to follow the pack.   

I’m not sure when it began, but at some point not that long ago, in a real quiet way, I started talking to Him again.  I did it in my car, while fixing dinner, I sometimes would remember a song that I used to sing at church, and sing it to myself as I fell asleep (okay, I wasn’t doing these things all at once,  fixing dinner, talking to God and falling asleep while driving my car….you know what I mean).   I wasn’t really praying to Him in the sense of praising Him, or giving thanks.   Mostly I would just talk to Him, in my head, about my parents, about things that happened to me during the day, sometimes I’d just be asking question after question about life……

When you love someone, you want to communicate with them any way you can, as much as you can.  Too much is not enough.  And when you can’t see that someone that you love,  you try to pour as much of yourself into your communication as you can, so that the person can feel how much you love them.    You call, you write letters, you leave notes, you send emails, you close your eyes and think of them, hoping that your vibes and the power of thought reaches them wherever they are.  My children & I do these things instinctively, when we’re apart.  I also do this with the people I love that are far away and that I wish were closer, much closer.   God sort of falls in that category.     

I might not like alot of what goes on in the world in the name of God, I might disagree and protest against things that my religion professes to be true and irrefutable.  I hold my freedom to question the Establishment as imperative to being created as a human being with free will, with the intelligence and faith to walk the path I choose, all the while putting my trust in Him.  I have no illusions, believe me, I have no answers to the mysteries of Life, and I probably never will.  What I do know is that since I’ve been talking to Him, and reflecting on His truth about Love, quiet miracles have been shining in my life, with my children, in my heart, in my relationships with my sisters and my friends, at work.  Angry scars have healed over a little more. 

If someone I love didn’t talk to me or try to communicate with me in some way, I wouldn’t feel close to them, naturally;  but I’d like to think that I would be waiting in the wings, waiting for them to be ready to reach out.  I think God works in the same way, He waits til you’re ready, and comes closer as you open up.  

There.  I think I’m ready now for anything those little Sunday School kids can throw at me.  Unless it’s their crayons.

Love, Chantal xoxoox 

When The Steam Clears Up

I step out of the shower, the fan above me whirs loudly…..you’d think I was in a helicopter for all the noise it makes…..  The mirror above the towel rack is all fogged up, but I don’t wipe the steam away….I wait for it to clear up on its own, patiently towelling myself off, wrapping my robe around me.  I walk out, towel-turban head, and make coffee.  I return to the helicopter launching pad…..can I shut that fan off now?   Is the steam all gone?  The steam hasn’t evaporated yet….. I look at the mirror, and see something appear, a secret message in a childlike script…….

I brought my car in yesterday before heading off for work, for its regular three-month checkup thingie.  I love my Hyundai dealership, the people that work there are fabulous.  So  I’m waiting, reading the newspaper, and Kevin the service manager calls me to the counter.  Roger the mechanic is with him.  Inside I’m going “Uh-oh, this isn’t good if both the manager AND the mechanic need to talk to me….”  So they go on to explain the work that needs to be done (front brakes are toast, back brakes need lube or whatever it is they need, an oil change needs to be done, parts & labour) along with the cost.  Roger is there holding my front brake pads for me to see how worn they are (like I would know the difference between a healthy brake pad and a sick one…but still, very considerate of him).  And he has that sad puppy dog look in his eyes as Kevin the service manager explains the cost (which includes taxes).   Steam fogging up the mirror…… 

Roger looks at me, sort of bracing himself as Kevin tells me the grand total, taxes included.   I’m doing my best to take it all in stride, as if I’m used to paying this kind of money all the time, just like that.  I AM an independent woman, after all, earning my own money, paying my own bills, providing for me & my children.   I smile at Roger the mechanic and Kevin the service manager, and say something breezy & nonchalant, like “It’s gotta be done….”,and shrug my shoulders while I say it.  Meanwhile I’m thinking “HOLY GEEZ!!!!!! That’s half my rent!”  Steamy, foggy bathroom alert….can’t see…..resist the urge to wipe the mirror….

As the Hyundai shuttle driver brings me to work, I’m still in a state of shock at the amount I’ll have to pay for the car.  There goes Christmas spent somewhere warm.   There go the kids’ mattress foundations I was going to shop for this week. 

Darren the driver is one funny guy.  Good thing, because I need all the comic relief I can get right now as I contemplate some kind of criminal activity to rob Peter to pay Paul.   Darren is 26, stands about 5′ in his workboots, as round as he is tall, and reminds me of a scrappy, scruffy little teddy bear.  And he has the best stories ever (he should be on George Strombolopolous’ The Hour).  I laugh all the way to work as he recounts his hilarious days of losing his keys, finding his own wallet that he didn’t know he had lost,  his dreams of going back to school to get a better paying job, his worries about being hugely indebted with student loans after said job is obtained.  But he’s an optimist, Darren is, and he always brings a little bit of sunshine to your day.   And I take a little bit of that sunshine back to work with me as I come up with a workable solution to pay for the car’s repairs. 

Steam clearing a little……

As I’m calculating what I owe for the next 2 weeks, I check the calendar, then check it again:  YESSSSS!!!!!  October sees me getting THREE cheques, rather than the usual two.    Hello Christmas holiday, hello mattresses! 

Steam dissipating til it’s nearly all gone….

Night falls, and the voice you long to hear is there, close and reassuring, asking about your day, making you laugh three seconds after you say hello, wondering what you’re reading, telling you that you’re amazing, that voice that wants to know all about you and how you’re doing.  You can’t see that voice yet, (are voices seeable?) but you know it’s there, you can hear it……if you’re patient, it will come.  Don’t wipe the mirror, be patient, it will all become clear.

Coffee cup in hand, I read the message my daughter has left for me, written on the mirror in her curly script:  I love you. 

I don’t wipe the mirror, I don’t clean it…I want to see that message again & again, each day.   Even when the steam clears, I know the message that my daughter wrote is still there.  Even when my children are not with me, they are.   Even when I’m faced with the unexpected, I know the answer is somewhere for me to discover.   Even if I cannot see the gentle, true voice that I’ve been hearing lately, I know he’s in my heart. 

Resist the urge to wipe down steamy mirrors, be patient and watch what manifests itself when the mist clears…..

Love,

Chantal xoxoxo 

Blossoming

I came across this link  http://www.chriswetherell.com/hobbit/   on Mental Floss, and being as I loved the Lord of The Rings trilogy, and I love Hobbits (because they’re nice & they read) I thought, hey this might be fun.  So what you do is you enter your name and it spits out what your Hobbit name would be.  This is my Hobbit name: 

Orangeblossom Bracegirdle of Nobottom

Of course, it’s hilarious!  Especially the Bracegirdle part! 

But I loved the Orangeblossom part…….Orange blossoms are Florida’s state flower, land of sun and warmth….orange blossoms are also delicate and fragrant.  But I was especially pleased by the Orangeblossom part of my Hobbit name, and this is why:

In Glamour magazine, there is a column entitled “Jake:  A Man’s Opinion”.  This column has appeared in the magazine since forever.  ”Jake” is a pseudonym under which different men over the years have written, providing women with their takes on relationships, dating, observations of women, etc….The “Jake” that I’ve been reading for the past few years had a girlfriend whom he talked about in the most glowing terms.  And to protect her anonymity, he called her “Orange Blossoms”.  I could just picture this woman in my mind, quiet, determined, independent, intelligent, in love with her Jake.  He named her Orange Blossoms because he adored her scent.  So Jake would sometimes write about his life with Orange Blossoms, how he was grateful for her, how much he loved her, all that nice fuzzy stuff.  Then one day, Jake announced that Orange Blossoms had broken off with him.  He continued to write the column, but would inject some comment every once in a while about how much he missed this woman.  It was really quite sad, reading it.  I’m not sure how long, but maybe a year or so later, Orange Blossoms came back into Jake’s life, they reconciled and are now getting married. 

The point of this whole thing is to say that whenever I would read Jake’s column, and he would talk about Orange Blossoms, I would think to myself how wonderful it would be to have a man so enraptured and in love with me that he would give me a name related to how much he loved my scent.  So when I saw that my Hobbit name contained Orangeblossom, I was tickled pink…..or orange in this case!  It was a hopeful little sign to my soul, letting me know that maybe one day, I will find myself in that special kind of nurturing relationship, where it’s all mutual:  respect, cherishment (is that a word?), passion, affection, love, support.  The kind of relationship that moves the other person to call me by a special name, attributed only to me…..like Fair Chantal, or something like that. 

As long as it’s not Onion Bunion……

Have fun checking out what your Hobbit name would be, and if you want, come back here to share it.  

Love, Chantal xoxoox  

Through Thick and Thin

A while back, I read a post written by my intriguing blogfriend, Hawk, over at Hawk’s Place,(http://whatisitabout.wordpress.com/2007/08/25/hows-your-metal/ ).    It got me thinking alot about inner strength,  about how external factors and events shape the person you become.   It also made me think how the way we process those extraneous things help in determining the possible outcome of events in our lives. 

And my mind kept going back to questions raised in that post….how do we temper & hone ourselves to deal with what Life hands us?  The analogy was with the fabrication of Japanese swords, but my thoughts kept returning to the gauge of my skin rather than my metal:  was I thick-skinned or thin-skinned?  Or somewhere in between?

Like everyone else, I’ve gone through some events in my life that should have thickened my skin, made me wary and mistrustful.    In the past few weeks, a whole mess of stuff seems to have surfaced all at once, not anything major, but stuff that needs to be dealt with nonetheless.  And this whole mess of stuff kind of makes me feel like I was taking a hit, falling, recovering, then getting back up, ready to take the next one, and so on.    I’ll try to say this so that it makes sense:  most of my life, I’ve coped by not feeling anything, through isolation, by pretending everything’s ok when it’s not.  Thickening my skin, adding layers, protecting, insulating.   I wasn’t getting anywhere, just spinning my wheels. 

I’m not sure when it started, but I gradually shed layers, literally & figuratively.  I kept seeking to be open and vulnerable, not really certain why, but I knew that for me, the answer lay in challenging myself to get out there.  The more I did that, the more I found myself to feel, to feel hurt, to feel deep sorrow and pain, on top of the joyful layers of laughter, and pleasure.   The more I challenge myself to live externally as much as I can stand it, the more thin-skinned I become.   Most people view thin-skin as a deficient character trait.   You’re wimpy, wussy, emotional, you’re too soft, you cry too easily, you’re affected too deeply by things that should just roll off your back.  And in many ways, it’s very true.  I am all of those things.  But the more thin my skin becomes, the more my inner light shines & glows.  That’s the part I love the best about this thin-skin business:  glowing.   

Coping with Life’s curveballs has been much more enjoyable now that I let myself be who I am.   Ok, enjoyable isn’t the right word…..I don’t want to say easier either, but it’s certainly positive.  You would think that being thin-skinned would turn one into a globby mess of jelly.   Sometimes, it gets kind of messy, that’s true.  Yet I’ve never felt as strong as I do now, and it has alot to do with staying open to others, to throwing down the gauntlet and doing things I never thought of doing. 

The past weeks have been like playing Truth or Dare.  And I don’t suspect the game to end anytime soon, as my life expectancy is probably another 40 years or so, give or take.  Whether facing down those pesky demons that make an appearance on a regular basis, whether  making the best of what’s being offered, I’m dedicated to keeping my skin thin.  Because you can’t feel anything when your skin is thick.   I’ll do all I can to nurture it,  smoothing the more damaged parts and admiring the scar tissue here & there.  

When it’s old(er), even more thin,  and wrinkled & softer to the touch, I want that satisfaction of knowing that I rolled with the punches, I bounced back from adversity, and kept shining on.  

But I don’t do this alone.  You don’t get through thick and thin by yourself.  So this is my repeat prescription of thanks to each person who has given me the honour of sharing in their life, and consequently has helped me to shine.  From those who left their imprints on my soul as a child, to those who keep giving me a reason to glow, to those (as yet) unknown encounters that will add seasoning to my life, I say merci.      

Love,  Chantal xoxoxo

Daughter of Eve, Daughter of Desire

What happens when the father of American literature collides with an Italian designer of elegance & sophistication in Northern Ontario?

P & I went to the drugstore on Saturday, to print some photos.  In order to get to the print centre, we had to walk through the fragrance department, with its gorgeous displays of flacons and scents, and beautiful young women standing at the ready, samples and smiles doled out with equal enthusiasm.  I love fragrance counters.  All the expensive scents that I’ll never buy but still get to try out, that feeling of being worldly and sophisticated,  being slow & deliberate in my meanderings, looking, picking up one bottle & putting it down, then moving on to another that catches my eye & spritzing it on my wrist….then waiting, and letting the scent waft around me.  Closing my eyes and going “mmmm”…..then walking away, to the chagrin of the salesgirl who thought she’d be making a sale…..but no!  Anyways, I’m getting carried away here…..

As we were walking through the fragrance department, we happened upon the display for Nina Ricci’s new perfume, aptly called Nina.   I would buy it just for the beautiful bottle it comes in:

 P & I were so enchanted with the display & the colours, we actually ooo’d out loud.  I picked up a bottle & spritzed some on, and I immediately fell in love.   Not being familiar with the concept of testers, P was shocked that I did this, until I explained to him that I wasn’t doing anything illegal by spritzing on perfume from a tester.  I showed him the tester sticker on the bottle; he nodded his understanding, but I could see that the more he learned about the world, the more he found adults hard to figure out (he discovered this week that I am really Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy).  Anyhow, I spent the whole day smelling Nina-licious….even the kids kept snuggling into me every chance they got to inhale this apple-musky-vanilla scent….

So what does the new Nina Ricci fragrance have to do with Mark Twain?  Probably not alot, really, except that the fragrance Nina is inspired by Fille d’Ève, created in 1952 by Madame Ricci, and I’ve just finished reading  Eve’s Diary,  Mark Twain’s witty interpretation on how Eve might have lived her first days in Eden.  A romantic masterpiece if ever I’ve read one.  Written about 100 years ago, it’s thought to be Twain’s posthumous love letter, to cope with the grief of losing his wife.  That, in and of itself, is reason to read the story.  

In the Christian tradition, Eve is the one who ate the apple, who tempted Adam, who also ate the apple, thereby setting in motion the concept of original sin, and the whole world went to hell in a handbasket from there.  Or did it?  I think Eve gets a bad rap from humans.  She was created with desire, that’s part of woman’s nature.  The apple she ate is her fearless daring at satisfying her desires.  But she couldn’t have known desire if she had not experienced loss.   Only from loss does one feel desire.  And because loss manifests itself as a wound that must heal,  you can only heal by desiring to love again. 

Eve’s Diary is about a woman having a difficult time adjusting to her surroundings and dealing with loss.  Sound familiar?  Mark Twain could’ve called it Chantal’s Diary, or Philomena’s Diary, or Sarah’s Diary, or Everywoman’s Diary…..you get my drift.    In reading Eve’s Diary, I was reminded of my own journey through a marriage that ended in divorce, at my own bewilderment and sorrow at wondering where I went wrong, then making the even more sorrowful discovery that I had actually lost myself in the process.  

To love again…..that’s something I desire, most certainly, and more than I care to admit.  The loss of love is something I need to heal from.  And so I suppose that having experienced this loss, the way to healing it is to desire to love again.  Which I do.  I do desire to love again, as opposed to what I used to think, which was that I wasn’t worthy of loving anyone, let alone be loved by someone.  So that’s part of the healing.  Good.  I’m on my way. 

However (and you knew this was coming), some losses require a little more healing than others.  My mother passed away a few years ago, and the last year or so of her life was the most gentle time I had with her.   The preceding 36 years were not that great, marred by events in my childhood that rocked the house, ours and the Lord’s.   Some aftershocks are still felt after all these years, but they’re minor now.  I am, after all, an adult.   Thirty-some years is a long time though, to be carrying around hurt and rage.   I lost my mother physically, yet it’s not that loss that I find I need to heal from the most.  It’s my sense of value and worth as a daughter, as a child.  I wanted to matter to my mother, that I was worth protecting.  I wanted to feel that in her eyes, I was a shining star.  That I mattered to her more than anything that she had going on at the time.  

 

When I look at the relationships with the men in my life, with my friends, with my sisters, with my children especially,  I see how I’m trying to find a little bit of the mother I lost in that 30-year time span.  Subconsciously, I’m looking to be special to someone.  That sounds really pathetic, wimpy, and kind of self-centered.   And I’m sure if another woman would tell me this, that she wants to be special to someone, I’d probably frown, raise an eyebrow and think “We’re all special, you ninny, now get a grip and move on!”  I wouldn’t tell her that, of course.  Let someone else burst her bubble.  Because as much as that might sound weak or whatever, it’s kind of courageous to be so openly (stupidly?) vulnerable.   

If I would send a secret to PostSecret, that’s what I would write on my postcard:  I need to feel that I’m special to someone.    On the postcard, there would be a picture of a mother from the ’50s, all smiling, in a fabulous dress & apron, a freshly-baked pie in one hand, a bible in the other, and her back turned to her daughter.   The daughter has this look of longing in her eyes as she looks to her mother to give her sustenance….just a little. 

I miss my mother with all my heart.  That last year was our year to forgive and give love.  I don’t begrudge her the choices she made, but I am still angry and hurt.   The discovery of the year?  Even though she’s gone, the rage at the emotional losses can still heal.   They heal with my desire to love again.   

Just like Eve.  By eating the apple, she had the courage and desire to live the pain as well as the joy, she listened deeply & heard the whisperings to love again.  

 Love, Chantal xoxox         

The One That Got Away/The One That’s Getting Away/Or Catching & Releasing Act III

Act III has been reworked and is now complete. 

Act III, Scene I

In the last scene, the two principals had taken leave of each other. 

 http://crrz07.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/the-one-that-got-away/

The two principals have not returned. 

End of Act III

The End

The management of this playhouse would like to thank you for your patronage throughout the year, and for helping make this play the success that it is.  Unfortunately, the writer and producer have decided to call it a day, and what was originally billed as a play in 16 Acts has mercifully been reduced to a play in 3 Acts.   No refreshments will be served. 

Untitled….so far

Falling into waters

Warm with promise, and no

lifeguard on duty.