“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”—T.S. Eliot
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They shared the morning light together, each in read as yellowing of golden sun filtered through opened blinds in slant and cast through open room, nearing winter’s cool outside, lawn and lingering drape of leaves in limbs cast in ray shined silver frost; Annie in chair, legs crossed and long on ottoman before as back and body sank into hold and rest of chair. Warming in the raising of night-cooled room, she wore again the loose grey sweatshirt, smooth plush on open skin, covered loose across body and arms save pointed drape in hint to cool and thought raised ends.
Across the room, he rested too, and she loved the way of their being: distance and space and freedom of mind, in instant, brought back in lived-connection.
He found a passage, read it aloud, and asked her what she thought.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. What do you think of that?” he asked
She looked to the window on span of silver lawn, trees in blow and the shuddered light that danced in the soft blow of wind upon the limbs, the fall of linger-leaves in cast as those fallen before, ever fewer keeping hold and life in the sky-breath wind.
She looked at passers-by, some smiling, others sodden, and she wondered why one should be sad on a day as beautiful as this, what it was that kept them low; what they saw or didn’t see.
Eyes and thoughts returned to room, to James as he rested, lounged in shirt and shorts, handsome in contemplative and casual ease of a working mind and a searching soul.
She thought of his stories, thought of his dreams, and she wondered why it was they seemed to speak singularly to her: the gift of pen and an open spirit.
“If a story is not about the hearer, (they) will not listen,” he once had read, “The strange and foreign is not interesting—only the deeply personal and familiar[i]” the rest had told; and to his stories, she always listened.
Was a story writing then?
She wondered.
She looked again to light of the window and thought of love, its making in the light, cool of the almost winter and warmth and way of his hold, golden light over open skin and silver on world beyond, covered in shadow of branched blinds that moved and swayed, opened and closed, in breath of the living wind.
All of it was beautiful, and she wondered why it was man hid its love, shied from the draw and inclination and creation-purpose and in meekness to witness made the beautiful base all in denial and resistance to openness when love and light and souls revealed.
Light danced upon her then.
Words arrived, from in or somewhere else.
She did not know, but she believed.
“Why do you do what you do?” she asked. “Is it to move mind or heart? It is simple to raise a thought. It is more and something different to make a heart believe.”
She thought of the light, wanting still for love.
“Keep going,” Annie spoke. “Go too far. I don’t think you can or will; but try. Maybe others hope to follow…” she trailed in shift of thought.
Annie’s mind swirled as she thought on the light and the words, want and a way that would not settle, discerning energy and spirit known as she rose and moved to stand before the window, light aurora framing in fall through branched blinds: touched, stirred, in beckon for beyond words to make her heart believe.
[i] John Steinbeck, East of Eden