The World Between Freedom & a Storm

 

"Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace during a storm." - Anonymous

My Grandmother sits counting her rosary beads. I am ten years old. She whispers a prayer in Latin as each bead slowly moves on. She appears calm in my memory. The light appears to pour out of her as easily as it falls upon her. Her breath is quiet. Her voice is low and calm. There is a unison of sensations going on. Sight is sound is smell is touch. The pause between her inhaling and exhaling lies in some state of eternal evaporation.

Watching her calms me. She could not translate into English a single sound of Latin she had memorized. The sounds took her out of herself.

(Sotto): The world between dreaming and sleeping, waking and calm. There seem to be no borders between one state of mind and the next. The peace that Jim seems to have found is more than the absence of chaos; isn't it, Vatchi? A peace that is not an absence, but the thing itself.

*****

This short post is excerpted from ALL DRINKING ASIDE, p. 261.

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