In Childhood Home
#1 Prompt: What does she (this woman) already know about herself?
Ever since she was a little girl, Christen had listened. She hadn’t yet listened to the adults or what they had told her. And because of this, she hummed gladly.
Her light shined, and her fingers drummed on her chest as she listened to the rhythm that she knew already; it ran through her like light cords. She played a harmony across her chest as it played in gladness.
What she knew already was this: She was patient. She was loving. She was kindness.
She didn’t need to ask anyone, or even herself for permission. She already knew what comes next. She dipped her paintbrush into the jar and back to the canvass. Her little girl forms created swirls and beings of light that were so marvelously magnificent.
Even though her sweeping harmonies were here, in the tangent, covered in pigments, somewhere else her movements created rhythms that flowed into spirits and ran like rivers through swaying forests. With each brush stroke, she created movement that gave life to little springs and estuaries, and beget life to each of its creations. Though she couldn’t quite *see* the rabbits or the sparrows, or the fireflies caught in flight, or the algae blooms in bioluminescence, somehow… beknownst to her, she could always, always feel it.
#2 — How is that self-knowledge played out as she matures?
Waking up in the morning had always been hard for Christen. Each day she rose and it was like a groggy cloud settled just above her forehead. She was a hard sleeper, and didn’t much appreciate being wakened from her dreamland. Not that she could remember them.
Reaching for coffee, she was always assured a little caffeine and a little movement would get her jarred enough to stop doom-scrolling her phone from bed, and keep awake long enough to become coherent.
As she finally settled back in at her desk, she opened the page and stared at its blank canvass. She gulped and immediately reached for her device to calm her nerves, that struck immediately when faced with the expansive nothingness.
What would she put on the page? What could she possibly? Would it even be good enough? Was it worth writing if you couldn’t even strive for perfectionism? How would she know when she had “made it?” The question nagged at her very existence. She often found herself in this place of perpetuated inner turmoil. Her bones shuddered as she faced the reconciliation of her “purpose” and her naggitude. “Yes”, she whispered. “How, and When?”.
#3 — Take these two prompts; Combine Them.
Once I had the opportunity to step inside of a blank canvass. Tears streamed down my face — metaphorically of course — when I stepped into this digital print. Somehow through the magic of AI, I got to paint in three dimensions.
When matter was of course, augmented, I found myself actually allowed to create and walk and pull from my own unconstrained imagination!
That memory and music played a long time ago, but what I remember was so incredible about it was this: I could finally, finally hear the music.
When I climbed inside of that blank canvass, and dipped my brush into a rainbow colored wave and started to draw 360 degree circles with it, I found only my original sense of unique purpose, of playfulness, of design, and carefree imagination. I could dip that brush against the rhythm of my own chest and finally paint from it. I could hear it — her — there — the rivers from my distant memories and lives unlived, hear the dances of the glitter ponies and the pearlescence of sea salt breeze and oysters — so clear!
She grinned. In this place, there was no chagrin. Only foundness. I think that’s the moment where I finally realized it….
We can’t really ever lose it… the music, the memories, it’s right here, ever present… it rests, in all of us. ❤