Shadows

Have you ever noticed that it's only
Those who stand in the light
Who cast shadows?

I remember those days. They always started the same way. Hair done. Clothes on. Shoes on. Out the door. Day after day the same script chasing me. A small dog chased me once. I ran. It caught me, bit my heel and made it bleed. It's like that with scripts too you know. Words on pages are enough to haunt you sometimes - make you run for your life. Words on pages are enough to bite you too - make your heels bleed so next time you won't try to run. 

Bloody heels! I've heard the ladies say that sometimes. Like when walking through fields. Pointy part getting stuck in the dirt. Right occasion, wrong shoes. Or perhaps it's right shoes, wrong occasion. I mean who goes and hangs out in fields anyways? Stalks of corn stretching high above their heads. Specks of dirt stretching up their legs. Cries of defeat stretching from their lungs. Everything stretching. Except for those bloody heels. Not fun - so who goes to hang out in fields? People getting chased by scripts, that's who.

Have you ever noticed that it's only 
Those who look away from the light
Who can see their own shadows?

I'll concede to you this: farmers hang out in fields too. Drunk on wide open skies. Sobered by the realities of growing plants in environments they cannot control. They dig in dirt and pray to God for sun and for rain. It takes a little bit of paradox after all to grow a good plant.

Tonight we eat paradox for dinner, a bowl full of spinach, tomato, and cucumbers. Sunshine and rain dance on our tongues, then darkness comes. You and I get to talking, our voices low, they barely lift off the ground. We trade scripts for a while. We put them down on the floor, lower even than our voices. And that's when we learn how to sing.

Have you ever noticed that it's only
Those who sit in darkness
Who find themselves equal?
Ain't no one's shadow longer in there.

________________________________

I can be someone who is blinded by arrogance, who get's caught staring into the brightness of my own perceived innocence, who hides behind simple scripts. I am trying instead to learn humility and the art of sitting compassionately with others in the reality of who we both are.