as i was coming back from the journey my heart didnt sink to be back in my apartment as it has recently...but instead i was reminded of a very happy memory from childhood...
when i was very young i heard a word...it was a word which instantly meant something majickal to me...when i would whisper the word i felt my heart glow...power filled...i can still conjure up the awe my young self felt in saying and knowing the word bioluminescence...
now i still giggle over the excitement of it...i was so fascinated by this occurrence in nature...i saw a field of glow worms as a field of stars and dancing fireflies as otherworldly...i got the gist of the chemical reaction at play to make all of this happen but i felt so excited by the idea of it even existing...on their own accord creatures were lighting themselves up...creatures in caves and under the sea were finding ways to do this as well...
it made me think of the image of christ i saw in a religious tract...his heart shining...and i wondered if all our human hearts glowed...they must i thought...they seem like they should....and so when i was afraid of a nighttime walk or the woods when it got too still or adults fighting...i thought of my heart...how it was glowing...it was making more love i thought...it was helping me...keeping me safe...and i took it even further when some well meaning adult told me i had a guardian angel who would light my path in life when things felt the darkest...well then i thought my heart was where my guardian angel must live or at least travel through...
for an entire summer around my eight or ninth year of this life i was mesmerized and enchanted with bioluminescence...and still when i whisper this word my heart feels as if it is pulsing with light and i am safe and have my path well lit...
~*~
2nd journey back into the cave...realizing this cave dwelling day is about reconnecting me to childhood memories i havent thought of in years...i am so incredibly moved by this...to see in such detail my young self and all "her" goodness...my gosh she was such a good-hearted kid...
one memory which just came up in the cave was from 4th grade...there was this very shy boy who's dad owned a country store...often he brought big boxes of treats to school...packs of gum or suckers or even a big box of candy bars...i remember those times as very uncomfortable for me...all the kids would push and shove and snatch at the treats he held out to them...but i would stay back or sit in my seat...i could never take anything...it felt so uncomfortable...yet even then i couldnt understand why...all i knew was it made me sad for him...but now looking back i see more...i see the kids pushing him as well...fighting over it all...like crazy seagulls fighting over a bit of food...yet each time he held the box out and for a brief moment there was some attention directed towards him...he was the kid who gave out candy treats...and then the kids came to expect it and came to him and he would hold the box out if he had anything...otherwise they would look at him and walk away in disgust it seemed...
i remember his eyes...they were happy as the kids took his offerings...
he always sat alone at lunch...or at the end of the bench and would get bumped off when another kid squeezed in...i was with the popular kids and yet there was one time i felt especially uncomfortable with how my friends treated him...it was around christmas and he brought in big candy cane sticks...but i think the kids didnt like them or thought they were to ordinary too offer up...so they took them and broke them at his feet...they smashed them against the walls...they poked him with them and did fake sword battle with them close to his face...
he ever so slightly flinched...i got up and stood close to him...i think it was my quiet way of saying enough...then i helped him clean it all up and we went to the drinking fountain to wash our hands...i remember wiping my hands dry on my pants and he copied me...
he had soft eyes...brown like the brown of buckeyes...he was small and smelled like old spice...
i sat with him at lunch that day...i remember the noise around us...my friends puzzled looks...santa came through the lunchroom and tossed penny candy at us...the lunch ladies each got a card and some flowers...i remember the boy looking up and smiling as he retrieved a piece of candy which had landed in his soup...i watched as he dried off the wrapped candy on his paper napkin before sticking it in his pocket...he leaned over to me...it was the first words he ever spoke to me, "it must come all the way from the north pole....it must have majickal powers if you eat it"...this was a kid i could relate to...this was a kid i understood more than my friends who snatched at candy and made fun of a little boy with soulful eyes...
for the remainder of the year i got to know him in quiet moments...never taking candy from him...but feeling more comfortable with him than anyone else around me...his name was stevie...he slowly came out of his shell...he grew to be a handsome teenager...we grew apart...after we graduated from high school and i moved away he committed suicide...for some reason i thought it was because a girl broke his heart...but i am not sure...and i dont think i want to know the why of what finally broke him so completely...
today i remember his hands...his little hands clutching a box of goodies...i remember his soft chuckle at some silly string of words he would feed me to get me to smile on a bad day..i think at home he was going through things i was going through as well...and when we started understanding this about each other we grew apart...it was too much to see in each other perhaps...
and today i understand i didnt take the candy because i wasnt like the other kids...i couldnt take it...somehow i knew it was offered out of loneliness and longing...it was the same loneliness and longing i had...to be loved and cared about just as i was...and often wasnt...i think that is why somehow i keep surviving this world and he didnt...because i knew and still know i am good enough...even if it is just good enough for myself...just as i am...and those kids...some of them my best friends...they saw his need for acceptance as a weakness and they rejected him...the most gentle soul among them and they rejected him...i hope somehow he always knew i never rejected him and i always knew he was special...
i am grateful to remember him more today...to remember the tenderness of him and i...the friendship...the trust...i always trusted him to be kind to me...what a good boy he was...
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