One’s own way
It didn’t seem to want to follow my usual way, or the usual expectations I have of how a chime is “supposed” to be when I make it.
Golden spirals were delicately painted on both sides of the rust-cinnamon colored leaves. Long golden silk threads were wrapped around the stems. They reached up, tethered to swatches of malty-sand colored cotton fabric on its way up to being coiled onto a river-softened stick.
And when it was finished and I hung it up, something was off. It resisted. And I resisted it, too.
The chime didn’t want to hang straight, as if “straight” would solve something. The fabric swatches didn’t want to line up either, and when I prodded them into place, they stiffened against each other.
The leaves didn’t want to face up but kept falling over to show their underside. I wanted them to face up. It looked better, I thought.
It didn’t want to lay flat for a nice photograph either, no matter how much I nudged it to do so, forcing it into place. So I gave up and jostled it instead.
When will you see that I need to do it my own way. I want to be this way, not that way. I don’t do it the way you want. See me for how I am, not how you wish for me to be.
That’s when I stopped. I listened more. I saw it. I felt it.
Sometimes we can’t hang straight. Who said that’s better anyway? Because when we actually stand still, just like I’m learning in QiGong with legs together and hands on our bellies and our bodies relaxed, we actually gently sway back and forth, like bamboo in the wind.
Sometimes we don’t want to smile for the camera, or be in that pose. Why can’t we be however we want for a photograph? This way or that, not lined up, looking elsewhere, slouching, or blurry?
Sometimes it’s too much to keep holding up our masks, the ones we use to face in front of others. Isn’t it also alright to show the underside, or another side of our face, and maybe show a bit of our vulnerability?
✻
May you do it your own way, too…
LouLou
“One’s own way” was originally published as an exclusive post to my Ko-fi supporters in March 2023. Now it is public to you, too!
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