Jellyfish Wrapper
Ooh, come with me – To the fields
There is a power to sleeping together. Not sex. Just the presence. The comfort of simply being with someone—unguarded, no pretense, no protection. One of the most beautiful things I can imagine is trusting someone enough to sleep beside them. Completely exposed. Entirely safe.
Lately, I’ve been camping on the floor of my studio to give her space to heal. I don’t mind. I can sleep anywhere. I only need a still spot and a quiet mind—then I’m out. But I miss the presence. That simple communion from existing with another.
Today, I’ve reclaimed my ledge. Waking here is delightful.
The void is warm and comforting this morning. White noise hisses gently from the smart speaker. The waning gibbous night-star is nearly gone, and the drawn curtains make the room a perfect inky black.
Fresh sheets—soft, smooth, unsullied by sweat or oil—wrap around me. They’re blue, speckled with little sea creatures. It’s like I’m submerged in a kingdom of kelp and coral.
The jellyfish whispers a joke about an embarrassed whale and the sea’s bottom. An octopus tickles me.
Just inches away, a giant sleeps: soft, rhythmic. Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh. An occasional snore buzzes like a faulty wire.
A far-off train horn drifts down beneath the waves of drowsiness—long bleats, like a giant lost sheep longing for its mechanical mother.
I woke from troubled dreams. I was talking, but no one listened. The louder I spoke, the smaller I became. Like Alice drinking the one drink that makes you small. Finally, the size of an ant, I gave up in exasperation and floated away like a dandelion puff.
Then I was flying like Superman. Lois was with me—listening. The spokes of my flower-body broke away in the wind until I was no longer a person, but a painting on a museum wall where I would listen to people talk about me and how I made them feel but I just hung there and wondered when the patrons would ask me how I felt.
I’ve been stolen, rolled into the shape of a boy, hidden beneath this sheet of fish and seashells.
It’s not so bad, being stolen art. I don’t want the world to see me. I don’t think they’d understand. (“Iris” plays in my head.)
I know they wouldn’t. I’ve opened my soul to the world and been met with curiosity—but never comprehension. Like scientists examining James Cole in 12 Monkeys, intrigued but out of their depth, studying a man unstuck in time.
I’ve been reading about being heard. About how God listens. How He hears us—but we must adjust our expectations. We don’t always get what we want. Not right away.
Which—I get.
We can’t expect everything. Nice vacations. Fancy meals. Big houses. These physical pleasures the world pines for. But what’s harder to accept is the denial of a sound mind. Of warm friends and family.
Jehovah doesn’t test us with evil—He cannot be tempted, nor does He tempt. But He permits challenges. Not maliciously, but because His will must be done in heaven and on earth. Unless we’re involved in that directly, He’s not dispatching angels to wrestle anyone.
But wrestle we do.
With one another. With life. Mostly, with ourselves.
Still, it’s a wonder to do something—anything—just to make Him proud. Like a child showing a mother the worst drawing in the universe.
But her heart swells, not at the quality, but at the offering.
Imagine God’s celestial refrigerator, covered in our fumbling masterpieces.
“One day, you’ll be an auteur, my child,” He says. “Don’t stop. I save everything you’ve ever made for Me. And I love them all.”
He says this to me.
He says it to you.
Moist ache smudges the cotton beneath my cheek. I squeeze my eyes tight; my ears roar with emotion. I breathe in—deep, steady—hold—and out again. Gentle. Controlled. I fold the tremble in my chest like a broken wing, careful not to rouse my bedfellow.
How I miss her. Her warmth and softness. Only inches from me—but a universe separates us in the morning. It always has. But especially this past year the morning chasm stretches us into myth.
I am most alive in the smallest hours here before dawn and into the early day. Her clock is inverted by at least half the day.
After the longing dream, her comfort would be a mercy. Her presence, a balm. But when I reach out she shrinks and evaporates like the morning dew.
It isn’t conscious. Not cruel. Like the mimosa that folds at the slightest vibration, she wakes and retreats. Later, she won’t remember retiring to the couch. Only that she was uncomfortable.
When the world runs too hot, too cold—or too anxious—she seeks change. Precious things are like that. Fragile things.
The callous must fracture, or find their own way to soften.
The distance weighs on me. But there is more to it than just some couple who grew apart. He in pursuit of his hobbies, she invested in feeling whole or distracted.
I have known for decades: my delicate half carries deep traumatic scars and an incomplete set of communication tools.
Her anxiety is not a wall I can scale—only one I can comfort.
Yes, it rends me to live here outside the wall. But are not knights sworn to serve their liege no matter the cost? I am counting on a fairy tale.
One day, the spell will be broken and the city gates thrown wide, welcoming me into the secrets of her heart and giving her the capacity to bear mine.
Firesides are for patient contemplation. So I burn as long as required. Warm against winter, waiting for spring. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward.
I am learning to adjust my mindset—to be more in harmony with Jehovah’s. To cultivate humility. A sound mind.
Peter is a good example. You remember when he denied Jesus three times. Jesus told him it would happen, and still, fear drove Peter to do what he swore he wouldn’t.
Had he remembered to pray, perhaps he would have had the strength to do what was right.
It’s an unlevel playing field out here. EVERYTHING is working against us at times. Flipping, everything!! And the only tool we have is our logical mind coupled with a flawed heart.
What do we do if the mind is broken—and the heart, desperate and treacherous?
I know what I want. I know what I should want. Sometimes they align. Sometimes they clash. What I fear most isn’t desire—it’s that my logical mind will start thinking like my heart.
That’s what happened to Peter.
He knew. Jesus told him. But he couldn’t see it. It’s called situational blindness.
If you’ve never done the situational awareness test, try it. It’s a good example of selective attention.
Still, it is possible.
“Then Jesus, knowing all the things that were going to happen to him, stepped forward and said to them: ‘Whom are you looking for?’ They answered him: ‘Jesus the Nazarene.’ He said to them: ‘I am he.’”
Jesus knew what was coming—and still faced it. Fear didn’t drive him. He was pragmatic, calm, courageous.
Is that what we’re afraid of? Losing our lives? Or losing a fuller life?
The starving man hardly knows he is hungry, but upon tasting that first morsel can only ever know hunger.
Be willing to be hungry. Starve, if necessary. Jehovah knows what we lack. What we want. What we long for. And he’s taking note of it—especially if it is something that we are honestly entitled to but denied due to circumstances beyond our control. We can’t help it if we, or those we choose to love, are broken.
We cannot fix them. Or ourselves.
But we can love. We can be patient.
And how can you not love someone who denies themselves for the good of another?
I can think of no act more heroic.
You be my hero, and I’ll be yours.
We could steal time—just for one day.
We can be heroes, forever and ever.
“But the end of all things has drawn close. Therefore, be sound in mind, and be vigilant with a view to prayers.”
The white hiss continues, but the warm void has been chase away. Our moon has set and the daystar taken its place. The glory of the transition is shrouded by a cloak of grey, but i know it’s there even if it’s invisible.
Oh!! The sweet grip of sleep is again pulling at me.
I will see you in my dreams.
#essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100DaysToOffload #writing
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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