Evolution requires Isolation
Evolution requires isolation.
Long hard bouts of isolation.
There are days where I wish to just sit in this little corner
With the owner who speaks no English.
And drink my 1 euro wines and pour my heart into my keyboard.
My nervous system prays
That I am covered up enough
Hidden enough
So that no one speaks to me
So I can create
And mould
And shape
And paint my life as it’s own masterpiece without commitment
Some will never understand what it takes to translate trauma into growth
To shed the skin of what you once were and step into who you are becoming
To delve into these self indulgent scribbles of gibberish
Trying to make sense of myself
and turn them into something that makes sense to everyone
One unwanted tap on the shoulder
One passing comment of a male
Can kill EVERYTHING.
But you sit
And you force a smile
And you laugh when you’re meant to
And frown when you’re not
How long can you keep it up?
Then there are days where
I sit to write and nothing comes out
And I pray
One sentence
One tap on the shoulder will change everything
That one smile from a stranger
One conversation
Will catapult me into a different world
That being immersed in someone else’s story
Will help me to rewrite mine
The days
When I sit and listen to the centuries of pain
The ways in which someone who has walked a different path to mine has come to the same conclusion.
Has come to sit drinking 1€ wines next to me.
I ask them of their biggest challenges
What they do for fun?
I watch their eyes light up…
One of the biggest perils in life…
That leaves us horn to horn…
That keeps us talking over the top of each other…
Like we are merely animals in a cage…
Is one simple sentence…
Everyone has a tremendous story…
We are all overcoming something that killed us
Yet re-birthed us
We are all striving for joy…
And my joy?
It’s this.
I sit here
And I listen to you
And I reinvent myself
Inside myself
Over and Over.
And the owner
Who speaks no English
Knows when I have a good writing day
He sends me away with a smile on my face
And a light in my heart
And on the days
My frequency feels stolen
He sends me away
Without giving me the cheque
And whispers in Portuguese
‘It’s on the house. See you tomorrow.’
And I huff
And I puff
And I open up my laptop
And pray today
I am either left alone
Or I am loved.
Today, as I write this.
I go to pay the cheque
And the man and wife I had a brief heart opening encounter with last Tuesday
Had come and gone, without me noticing
He told the owner…
’She’s having a good writing day. Tell her it’s on us.’
