Something about it calls to you

Not every day is a good day. I mean, you have to wake up, and it’s not that, not the slow uncoiling of the body from its warm nocturnal rest. Not the way the eyes must sometimes pry themselves open in that creaky way; tin cans clattering on a cold morning.

It’s more that you have to wake up to yourself and who is that? Who is that you are waking up into? Are you the girl whose world will be made right by a cup of Joe and a hot shower? Yes. But then what? What can you rely on next? What little island can you step onto and be comforted with that next security, because that’s what you want, isn’t it? You want to keep feeling good, yes, you want everything just so. You want to continue along a shiny yellow path, a brick road, just say it, a shiny yellow brick road. Because that feels so much better than the unpaved, ruddy path that you can see just to your left if you look down. You know the one, laced with hard little pebbles that cut into the soles of your feet. That path, a little reckless, not clear, a mess of nature growing around it; wildflowers and weeds, nothing tended, nothing clear. And where’s it going anyway? You can’t tell.

No, better, you think, stay with what you know because what you know can deliver you to that wholesome place of comfort. It’s a Queendom, that’s it, that’s what you want, really, if you think about it, admit it, to feel like a Queen. You want praise and love.

So you check the emails and you turn on the cell phone, opening the channels so that no love will go unheard.

And you sit and you wait and you preen; the facial products, the hair products, the clothes, checking yourself in the mirror at least three times a day to make sure you’re still in fine form, sometimes even imagining your lover dropping by unexpectedly, out of the blue, catching you looking perfect and beautiful and ready.

And still, the day is long. There are things to do. There’s your work and there are phone calls to make, people to get back to and you’re pretty good at this; you know the steps and yet there is this longing, this yearning and you can feel it all day. And even if you’ve heard from the lover or a friend, even if you’ve been told, “We Love You, You’re Fabulous,” you can still feel it. It aches.

You read emails but the moment you finish them you’re famished. Really, you’re starving. So damn hungry. And so you find yourself pushing at things, feeling almost a metallic, clanky, clingy edginess, and it hurts and it feels a little desperate because it’s lonely in the Queendom. You’re beautiful, yes, and you’re well loved but you’re so lonely.

Looking down out of the castle you can see that ruddy path in the field below, the muddy one with the hard little pebbles and you wonder. Something about it speaks to you, but you’re not sure. What shoes would you wear? Would you be walking it alone? You’re not sure how to get there and yet it calls to you. Something about it calls to you.