Where the Bridge Ends.

Trigger: Suggestions of Adults healing from child abuse.

The Sanctuary Canvas

​At first, I want this scene as a painting for you. Please, let me hum softly while my left eye finds the color and my right eye gazes at the structure. Now, breathe. Can you feel it? Hey, can you feel your lungs fill with the fresh, misty air around you? Its ok, you can breathe here. I nod to reinforce my statement. I speak slowly; I’m looking deep into you, wanting you to enjoy your breath in this temple. It’s my temple of peace, which I have opened for you.

​Hey, look at me! Let my Jupiter rise behind you. Let its steady weight of soft pink light enter your bones. It’s a void; I don’t have an explanation for why things are so deep in me, nor if I did, would I give it. But I can tell you this: once my chest was tight—that’s my business. Once, I couldn’t trust anyone. Betrayal was as real as a sharp knife. But here, in the wash of this light, I found I could trust again. So, I’m sharing because I’m guessing you might need it too! Oh, don’t mind the two pillars of knowledge rising up behind you—they won’t hurt you. They might just make you feel a little bit uneasy as you see yourself. It’s not so bad; we all have shadows. I kicked a stone off the path. Sorry, but you’ve gotta go through that to heal, you know—look at yourself and all that!

​Oh, pardon me, I’m just reaching near you to grab my large paintbrush. I need to block in the blue-grey conversation. I don’t want to touch you or anything—I’m just reaching for the brush. Can you see it? The paint starts in the top right-hand corner and moves downward in large, long strokes. It is so beautiful. I clap my hands—I got it. "I’m sorry," I say, as you shrink from me, but these days I can’t help but show that joy. You know, it is a private, earned joy. I’m queen of my own world. Small tears well in my eyes, and I swallow them down before they can fall.

​Composing myself, I point to the canvas. "Now, can you see how tall the Gums are?" I think their ancient presence deserves to take up most of the canvas, don’t you? My eyes grow big like a child’s, and I stretch out my arms awkwardly to show you how big big really is. "They are like Saturnian judges who have seen the talking end!" I whisper. No one can talk there. Then, pretending to blow a bugle: "Silence, world!" they command.

​Breathing in and seeing my lungs expand to watch the exhale. It’s like we receive an undeserved kindness all the time. I chuckle to myself and then side-eye to notice how you are looking at me. "Maybe you don’t want to walk with me," I say helplessly, "and that’s okay. I don’t have to be somebody you approve of. I am just being me, and you can be you. No rules."

​I change the subject and point, "I wonder if they are talking to each other?"

​"Who?" you ask.

​"If you haven't noticed, I’m pointing at the trees," I reply. I jump over one puddle. "You know they are talking to each other through their root systems. 'Watch out, an old woman approaching, who weeds with her hands rather than using poison'—I imagine them saying that." I bow, but I don’t take my gaze from you. "You noticed I care about the butterflies and bees," I say to the Gums. I come close and elbow you in the side. "Oh, come on. Lighten up."

​With a flutter, I give a transparent black stroke, and another, and another. I say, "My feathered friends have followed us." I smile. "You know they’re sussing you out, don't you? Can you see them? That one's Elias Black, and there's Trembling Fern, and when you hear the smash of squashed leaves, that’s Judas." You know, I wrote them into a story and that’s when I gave them names, and those names suit them so they stayed—not because they're characters in a story, but I named them how they felt to me. You can name them different names if you want. I pick up a long stick and drag it into the mud behind me.

​Oh, you’re silent again? Too bad! There is no need for loud words when the presence is this deep. No shopping centers playing loud music, no cars reeling past. No men to love or hate. No phones to answer, huh? Just silence. Hmm. Silence. I dance like a snake, like I’m where I belong and don't care.

​Clouds get dark. Rain shows for three minutes—a few drops here and there—so I open my umbrella for you. I say I don’t mind getting wet, it’s not winter yet, and then I whisper in your ear: "In silentio post aestum." I announce. Ahh... in the silence after the tide, the fever. This umbrella will keep you dry; it's my gift to you.

​The Bridge

​At the bridge, I stop and point down at the concrete. "Look at that," I say, not caring if you're tired of my stopping. "Puddles from some other three or four or five minutes of rain. Or maybe they’ve been waiting there since midnight."

​There is a choice of rails here. On the right, look at the mashed footprints—thick, heavy mud of coming and going. Everyone goes that way. I shove the stick in to measure the depth. Yep, they trudge through the deepest part of the puddle just because the person before them did. But look at the left. The stick does not ripple the thin surface. "Yeah," I say confidently. "As it always is, there are very few footprints, if any."

​"Why do people not go on this side?" I ask you, though I don’t really expect an answer. "It has the least depth of puddle. It's the cleanest way. Why follow the masses?"

​I wonder if people are just creatures of habit, or if they’re just not looking down. I’m a creature of habit too, but I can see a slip-and-slide coming. I remember flipping once—ouch, six weeks of recovery—to remember to watch where I am going. I won’t do it again. I hold the left rail. "Here, do this and be very careful. Don't hurry. No one is counting the minutes." My hand is steady on the cold metal; carefully, I walk. And then I watch you. "See? It's easy if you're careful. Soon you won't think so much about it."

​I lean over the edge and beckon you to look. Below us, the river bed. I put my writer's voice on and talk like an ABC radio presenter. "It’s embossed—puffy, if you must. No water present. It’s just waiting mud... not mud, but waiting mud."

​"I wonder," I whisper, "when I return for home, will the water be back? It always comes later from the run-offs. The mountain always gives it back." I say this, chewing the stem of paspalum grass and then spitting. You gasp.

​We reach the end of the bridge. I wave goodbye to the crows. I say, "Look, they stopped above us in that eucalyptus. This is it. Their usual neighborhood boundary. They won’t follow us past this tree. No, ah-ah! NO NO. We’re in a new crow neighborhood now." They always stop at that invisible boundary. They have their own pleasantries to attend to, their own community that matters. I nudge you wondering if you're staying awake. I’m told they hold funerals for their dead. Yep, funerals... I haven’t seen one, but a friend has. Must have been dad to watch that. A funeral that is. Huh, each one of them matters.

​I look at you and chuckle. "Anyway, that’s as far as I'm going today." I’m just being me when I say this has got you across to the other side. I shudder. "Been an unfed cow all my life giving milk. Learnt, you know, from my mistakes," I say, holding out a palm. "So... pay the ferryman!" You look at me.

​You reach into your pocket, knowing it’s that time to show the bigger sister the mulla, and offer a lolly. I look at it and shake my head, my smile softening. "Oh, you have a lolly? No, thanks."

​I’m looking at your hair now. There’s a bow there, sitting pretty and bright, holding your fringe. I reach out a hand, then pull it back. "I like that bow in your hair." I look down at the ground. "My mummy always cuts my hair short... real short... put a basin on my head and snip, snip. I just want to be a gi—" I shuffle my sneakers, putting my hands in hand-me-down jeans as my brother’s flannel shirt lifts. I repeat my request as if you haven't heard. "I mean, I would like to feel that bow, just for one day. I'll give it back, I promise. I keep my promises. Oh, not the religious ones, though—I'm sort of a spiritual fluid these days." I look up. "Just one day to be pretty. Could you share with me, too? And you can find your own way back through the mud if you like. Its wild further on and I like being by myself sometimes."