Water Words

So, the shower seems to be one of the only places that I get to be truly alone. I savor those 10, 15, and if I'm really greedy and irresponsible, 20 minutes of peace and quiet and healing water.

Our shower is one that is glass-enclosed. Through it I can see out our window and view our neighbor's bougainvillea moving in the breeze.

Yesterday, I noticed the way the steam was slowly veiling the glass. I saw my reflection. In an instant, I knew what I had to do. My fingers reached up to the steam covered glass walls of the shower and began moving, writing, dancing...

With tears suddenly in my eyes, breath deep down within me, and without thought, a poem arose... an open poem to my C-section. Yes, it made so much sense to scrawl it, furiously, in the steam...knowing the words would soon dissapate and I'd not be able to recall them exactly. It was freeing, liberating. Like the healing process of the Tibetan mandala...a work of art whose grains of sands are finally swept up and poured into flowing water...my words were to exist briefly, literally, within water. And then, they would be gone.

I wrote with a torrid pace on each wall of glass, from the top to the bottom, twice. Forming letters and words with just my fingers felt magical, powerful, wicked, and blessed. My hands moved without a thought and words flowed continuously.
And to cry in the shower is just as magical, powerful, wicked, and blessed. The tears were carried away, like my words, to never exist again. Indeed, I felt healed.

When my poem was complete, I stood back, like an artist studying her painting, and watched my words. Have you ever watched your words?... Slowly they melted, changed, dripped, and eventually faded. Like my pain, my scar. But two lines of my poem remained visible even after I stepped out of the shower, warm and clean, refreshed and renewed...

"...but in the end, you made me strong".