Magenta & Bold

Up, up, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen.... She hated doing squats more than she hated tofu and giving birth. The thought of abandoning her life-long quest for well-toned quads was enticing. Would she ever need to outrun a predator? Probably not.

Up, up, up, up. She had a good rhythm going now. Good enough, maybe. Good enough to get into that two piece and cast her coverup aside. Yeah right. She’d never ditch the cover up. Always thinking of how she looked naked was a curse from her youth. Those middle school boys had really done a number on her.

Up and out, up and out. Those thighs were getting so strong. Twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine….Always counting everything in her head. Steps too, she counted her steps too. Am I any closer today? Will I ever be? Keep pushing, keep working, keep going, don’t stop. This is all for my health, right? Wrong.

Under the covers, under the pillows. Was it all a nightmare? No, it was true. Left alone to decipher her purpose on earth. No squats, not right now. Braless and unkempt, she wandered the woods behind her house. She played the part of a grey-haired, middle-aged, feral woman quite well. She sought the advice of the oaks and some maples. What secrets do you keep? What more do you know? Is spring on its way?

Up into the woods, up into the woods. Each day she would walk. The trees were still naked, tickled with snow. They waited, as did she. They waited. Then she saw them. The pines, hemlocks, spruce, and cypress. They were the ones with the secret as they flaunted their perseverance amidst all that grey.

Down from the woods, she descended in a sprint. The words needed to flow onto something and fast. Like a magnet, that little black book pulled her close. Thoughts spilled out onto page number four, a tale of trees and the vernal rise of middle age. The trees had whispered new life into her brain and that book held the literal key to a door she had not yet found.

Those pages received all the words of the past. The words that had tumbled through her mind everyday. Maybe this was the reason she had once landed in the clouds in a daze without a guide, 6,000 miles away from all that she loved. She will never understand what had pushed her that far. Leaving that aquamarine paradise behind for this evergreen embrace was the best decision she had ever made.

Now she lives in this household of six, ages 7 to 88. It took a pandemic to realize just how amazing they all are. Carefully they have tread through a year of uncertainty. No forcefield could block such gruesomeness and fear. Yet somehow they learned to revel in the simple and to truly take care. What beauties are humans when challenged to survive.

The cuckoo strikes 7, the kids and elders will soon awake. She sits still with her book, alone with her thoughts. Write, write, write about vibrant trees so boastful in that damp naked forest. This book holds her legacy, their lives. Her life is here now, their lives are too. Now tethered to roots she will explore and expand. A talented wordsmith has been put to the test to tell a gritty tale of wrong turns and clumsy ascendance. The truth will be told, however uncomfortable it is. Through this return she will erupt into new life. From this black book so little, and a fortuitous side of $20k, her words will blossom into a novel that is magenta and bold.