I'm very, very far away. I've been traveling for hours. I'm not used to this.
This distance strips me of my sense of self and place and purpose but its a friendly fog. It embraces without weight. Without warping.
My legs and arms and eyelashes stretch long long longer and then they're gone. I become the road I'm on. The bits of sand stuck in the corners of my eyes. The endless breaths shunting through the shallows. I sparkle in the slow. I drift in the still, with grace pulled up to my chin.
I sleep. All night.
This has been a long time coming.
When my alarm calls for me {not a child's voice, not a child's cry} in the morning, I surface slow slow slowly -- not interested in breathing real air. I roll over and dive back in. Not yet, not yet.
When that voice finally does call, I meet the day with enough rest but this hint of regret tied heavy to the corners of my mouth. I missed the sunrise. The silence. A chance to salute the new day -- alone -- and siphon some of that soft pink from the corners of the sky.
I settle for a sprinkling of yoga across the morning -- downward dog while the kids are eating breakfast, chair pose while they are getting dressed. Which is something. But not, not, not enough.
I am all angles and edges and sometimes -- sometimes -- length. I lean against walls. I let my shoulders fall forward. But I'm still on my own two feet and always -- always -- touching the ground.
I look in the mirror, at one eye and then the other. I can't see them both at once. Filaments of orange dance in the green, around a dark, deep center. Its darker and deeper than I can even imagine.
My best self is in there somewhere and I know I've got to do some digging to unearth her. Below the surface and with bigger tools than just my fingernails.
So tonight I'll set my alarm again.
My soul -- it wants to wake up. We'll see if my body will play along.
