I remember the days when my feet were still little, but heart was already big enough to feel the world. I would run barefoot across the meadow near my grandma’s place, and it seemed bigger than a continent to me. I did not know much beyond, but could feel a lot within. When I would get upset I’d speak to the wind and sing to the rain and spin with butterflies. The morning grass blades would brush my dewy hair when I’d fall breathless on the ground. I felt you, mother Earth.
I remember once I met her, a little fairy princess, sitting by the tree and looking at the wind.
What do you see there? – I asked her.
I see the dance, she answered.
This wind is dancing and thinks no one can watch it. It’s lovely to watch him in this state.
She turned to me - Are you a friend, she asked.
I don’t know, - I was confused for I thought I did not know her.
Take your time, - she said and sprang into the grass, picking the first morning blossoms. I watched her for a while, when heard grandma’s voice.
time to go home, - I said to her. The fairy was making a flower crown and didn’t hear. “am I your friend?” echoed in my head while I was walking home, holding my shabby sandals in the hand.
I will return I thought. Yet, years have passed. I did not. Things happen to people, things confuse people, and things divert the paths. How far I’ve gone from the meadow? How much I’ve grown? At which point did the shabby sandals get torn and the big heart got too heavy for one little soul to carry?
Days changed to nights, and seasons waltzed one after another. I flew across continents, met many people whom I called friends without hesitation, I danced at parties and stages, received heaps of flowers and bunches of kisses from those I believed loved me and I gave myself piece by piece away to them, who later left, unable to carry the weight of my heart. Heavy hearts have never been popular. And the giddiness of the carousel of events, people, places, achievements kept on swirling my head, until one day I opened my eyes and understood how small is the world and how closed had my heart become having been drinking grief every morning for endless numbers of years. I couldn’t count. And I couldn’t find. Anymore.
I left it all. The words, never said. The promises never kept. The love never received. I locked my house without any message or warning. Just left.
I went looking for the meadow and the fairy girl. The friend who taught me how to see the dance of wind and dress my sorrows away in flower crowns.
The journey was long. The longest was not the distance, but the patience, which I had to wait for in order to face myself back again.
I had to forgive, trust and surrender. There was no other way.
And one of those days, which fly by like dragonflies, with wings as transparent and sparkling as the sun puddles over the leaves of the ivy, I was laying on the grass my eyes bathing in the deepest blue of the sky. I heard her laughter.
You took you time, - she teased me.
I closed my eyes to swallow the tears that started filling my heart.
It’s only time. – she said then and held my hand. – it’s only the whir of dragonfly wings. The music that has to be played.
She looked into the distance once more and I followed her gaze. The wind was dancing. And finally I could see it.
Teach me again, - I asked. I felt so much unlearnt, but so ready to try once more.
She laughed as if saying that I knew it all already, that I had it all. I was the dancer and a part of the Dance, without knowing or noticing it.
One does not need to know, to be, - she said and holding my hand walked me through the meadow which once more became bigger than any of the continents I had crossed. It became the place where the sun, rain, wind and whisper of dragon fly wings were spinning the design of a never waken dream.
