Metal in Moonlight
by RC DeWinter
Title
Metal in Moonlight
Artist
RC DeWinter
Medium
Painting - Digital Oils~paintography~photopainting
Description
Copyright 2014 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved
It's been busy days getting ready for my next adventure...endless details, not to mention the grunt work of deciding what to bring and then packing it. I've been growing more trepidatious as the day for departure looms. The mental choir buzzes and hums and I catch snatches of words like crazy and pointless.
Last night I lay wide-awake for hours, thoughts tumbling like hellish bits in a mental kaleidoscope - irregular, sharp-edged - forming murky patterns of chaos. Unsure of what I was doing, wavering in my recent firm resolve to embrace the challenge of the unknown, and most of all swamped once again by the feeling of abandonment that has haunted me all my life, I even - and hated myself for a weakling - let a few tears escape.
As the saltwater of fear and frustration burned my cheeks I finally resorted to a little medicinal help for sleep. I need all the energy I can muster now, and not sleeping is a sure path to irrationality and failure. After a short time I slid into darkness, thinking as I did that I was grateful to have my mind shuttered at last.
The shuttering was short-lived, however. Suddenly I was walking under the full moon in my beloved salt marsh, treading the familiar path that leads over the iron-railed bridge. Once standing on the bridge's sturdy planks, I paused, staring up at the impenetrable midnight blue sky and praying to the moon for strength and wisdom. Then a familiar voice interrupted my orison.
"Your fear shook me through space and time," Vincent said softly. Curling his hand around my left shoulder he continued, "It's still strong, ma chere."
I turned and buried my face into his chest and sobbed as if the sorrows of my entire life were an ocean breaking through a sea wall. Vincent embraced me gently and let me cry.
"I know," he murmured. "You feel how I would feel if suddenly Theo fell off the face of the earth."
When at last the tears ceased Vincent stood me up straight, facing him.
"Look."
He turned me around and pointed to one of the pitted, rusty iron joints supporting the upper bar spanning the bridge.
"Imagine that as your shoulder. Can you see and feel its solidity?"
He led me over and put my hand on the cold iron. Although bits of rust rubbed off onto my hand, the metal underneath was solid.
"Despite everything that wind and weather have delivered, it stands," Vincent continued. "I know you have momentarily forgotten it, but you have this same strength. Despite what anyone else sees or doesn't see, you were made strong and worthy."
I looked him in the eye and tried to smile, but couldn't.
"Vincent, everything feels like a rerun of an ugly script I've already starred in," I replied. "What began as a brand-new road suddenly seems like a detour straight back to a place I never wanted to visit again."
"And if it is, that doesn't change you," he answered. "It simply means that the one worthy of you has not yet manifested. And there is no guarantee of its happening. But, speaking of roads travelled before, think back. Do you remember the relief you felt when you were freed from that disastrous second marriage? How your mantra has been 'Better alone than with the wrong one?' I know you still believe that."
I burst into tears once more.
"I know," Vincent said again. "It's the wanting...the lust for a life shared with someone who sees and feels what you see and feel. You must keep believing. One of your favorite books," and here he smiled as he pulled out a handkerchief and dried my face, "has a line in it that you have repeated to yourself many times. 'Be worthy, love, and love will come.' And though love never came for Alcott, I think it will for you. Perhaps not now or even tomorrow, but some day."
That was the end of the dream. I remember nothing after that, but I woke renewed in my determination to keep my eyes trained forward and my head held high. As long as I breathe, the adventure of tomorrow awaits.
~ copyright 2014 RC deWinter
The full autumn moon shines down on an antique iron bridge joint in a salt marsh n Fairfield, Connecticut.
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Visions of the Night
Thanks to the group hists for their encouragement and support.
iron, metal, night, bridge, landscape, moon, full moon, moonlight, leaves, trees, autumn, new england, connecticut, fairfield, marsh, salt marsh, fall, rust, plants, rc dewinter, dewinter
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November 3rd, 2014
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Comments (20)
Carol Jacobs
Beautiful painting on its own and so effectively imbued with meaning by your moving narrative. LF