Wow, I’m in a really bad mood today / The Garden.

I feel like scowling at everyone on the planet. Also, though, I feel a lot of other things. It’s hard to explain what I feel. An odd peace with God coincides with an exceedingly small tolerance for humanity — not in all ways, though, just some ways. Like, I won’t snap at someone, but I’ll tell them I don’t like something and why. Or, I’ll freely tell my man that he shouldn’t risk the innocence of his soul to a (and I quote myself here) “satanic work environment” — being that which we moved cities for him to escape, and is considering returning to when we move back. It is a strange sense of honesty that is neither friendly nor malicious. I think it was once safe to say I employed friendliness in my honesty, as much as I could manage.

But that night, when I lay my aching back down on the floor, listening to the music and smelling the scents that so sharply reminded me of my meditations as a young girl, I fell back into that perfect garden. I remembered, then, that all the darkness in the world and my own mind didn’t stop me from occassionally seeking the respite of our maker. I remembered the lazy eastern chimes and bells, the frankincense and myrrh oils that dotted my collar bone, and the way my child’s room became something else, even as my family harassed the halls and rooms of the rest of the building. There was something there that brought me back faithfully, even as young as I was (12? 14?), as often as I could, back to the garden in my room.

I whispered to myself, now 23 years old, staring into a foreign roof, “why did I look so hard, all these years?” Then not so much to myself, “you were right there, all along.”

Just around the corner. Sorry, God, I forgot.