When Suffering Grows Roots

She did not move, because only immobility could hurt more than motion.  The woman held herself still because to move might lessen her suffering, and that she could not bear.  For her, only pain had meaning. 

~ altered quote by Mathew Stover

I thought I should stay right here.  I anchored my trunk with the roots of paralysis.  The keys to the Universe I thought I should offer up to the keepers of the Earth.  The view of the living and breathing beauty that spans before me should sustain the light and life inside of my being.  I should not need to move on from here.  I should not need to be the keeper of these keys.  I should rest my weary soul and shattered heart.  I should live with only my eyes, and I should only see what is beautiful, for that will sustain this level of devastation.

I should let the destroyed parts of me petrify.  I should become wooden, and rooted, and as old as the land.  The creases on my face should gracefully become rutted, grooved bark.  I should be a weeping willow.  I should be a most beautiful tree.  I thought.

But I bought a new umbrella, today, as mine came to wear thin in the place I took roots.  The parts of me that hardened, the paralyzing anchors that rooted me, the pain I knew that comforted me, have been misplaced....or perhaps stolen....or perhaps shed.  I am the keeper of the keys.  I think I shall move.