Walking Matilda

I want to say so many things that should be left unsaid and cry so many tears that should remain in their respectable ducts. I want to ask questions. I want to scream at an unresponsive audience and beg them for answers that will remain hidden in fists, clenched tight only for their discretion.

I should be steadfast and persistent with my actions, and myself but never before in my life have I doubted myself as much as I am right now. This doubt is pressed tight against the fake smiles I force out everyday. My eyes have never been so honest and telling than right now. If you looked deep enough and long enough, you could feel the sadness piercing into your own.

I want to move backwards to a few weeks ago. Each morning I went for a walk around an unfamiliar block and the cobwebs of the early spiders would dance against my cheeks. I walked past houses with porches filled with propaganda protesting politics. I made up stories about the people who lived inside, but never judgments. Every now and then I would find unacknowledged beauty.

One day I found it in the form of a small child sitting on the trunk of an old car. She was alone, no guardians within sight. She had a dark complexion with long, wavy black hair and could not have been older than five. I did not see her at first, but she had been watching me for a block. At first when I noticed her, I was startled; her silence was her nature. "Hi," I said. "Hi," she replied. "I like your dress," I said. She looked down and then back at me, "Thank you." I started to walk away, turned back and we exchanged smiles. I saw her again at least seven times within the next week and a half. I do not know if in our passing she remembered me or not, but she always managed to make me smile, a genuine smile.

Sunday afternoons I met the faces behind the silent protests. I saw young families sharing breakfast on their porches, old couples carefully watering their unkempt flower and bush arrangements, fathers teaching their children to garden, an elderly woman holding the hand of another as they went for a stroll on the sidewalk parallel to mine. This was perfect. Mondays brought empty porches, growing weeds, elephant shaped watering cans abandoned in hostas and my shadow lining the sidewalks. This was even better. The remnants of the faces left me to make my own assumptions of their whereabouts and convictions.

I would share these moments with myself and then take extended naps, only waking up to feel it all again hours later.

Alison.