If all the stories you wrote, if all the words you said, came to life, what is the story you would write? Would you be frozen, like the deer in the headlights, incapable of any action, or would you act on the power, and write for you a life story you truly deserve?
If someone asked the question to the me that was eight, of the story I would like to live by, the answer would have been quite a prompt & effortless one. I would have liked to run that ice cream cart, so I could have ice cream for free all day, or would have liked to paint the gaudy walls with trees & birds, a backdrop to my faux kathakali. Add in some Indiana Jones adventures to the mix, kick some ass and look for the ancient hidden treasures of the world. They’d make us very rich, I had heard. Being rich like that was the best thing that could happen to anyone, we would discuss, as we dug into the dirt with our little plastic spades, wide eyed excitement over every shiny crystal we found. With all that money, we could eat all the candy we wanted, and own a dog called dollar. How exciting would that be. So rich, and so much fun.
I like to believe, in some parallel universe, I am that child living the enchanted life I wrote for myself. A child, happy sprinting through neck high grass, like a little wild horse, with not a care in the world. The peals of laughter reverberating through the beautiful summer days, of chasing butterflies, building kitchen gardens & bird houses.
It would be great if an answer came as promptly & effortlessly now. For all those days of dreaming about powers that would be great to have, I find myself dumbstruck, just at the thought of a power so significant; the ability to live the story of my choosing and be the person I want to be, every person I want to be. It’s overwhelming, the responsibility that comes with a power like that, when the only person responsible for every twist & turn in the tale, would be me. What does one do when there is no one to blame? Scary thought that.
Looking back at the time that went by, the careless words, the unspoken ones, words that were meant to hurt, those that hurt, words that created, and those that destroyed what seemed like a complete lifetime; I have a new found respect for the power of words. The energy each one carries, the words that are written, those that are voiced, they are like pieces of a magical spell that one should never get wrong. We all know how bad a spell gone wrong can be.
The continual effort to find words that do justice to the way I feel. The uncomfortable screech of the wheels in the head, when the words don’t seem enough; the overbearing feeling, that if they were said aloud or put on paper, they would instantly turn to dust. Those times when silence says more, than any word could.
How easily they could become of a limiting nature, those words actualized, and yet each word carries within it the power to actualize all , no limits. It brings to my mind Midas’ dilemma, the realization that gold is not all that I may want.
What is that story I’d write. I wonder.
