“For where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.”—Matthew 6: 21
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Rain in the night, soft sound to window pane and wall in frame, she woke and sleep would not return. Circle wisp of ceiling fan in sound and moved wind-stir, she lain on her side and then on back listening to the sounds.
Mind worked, but to what thought and end—she couldn’t say. She knew only that she was awake and that sleep would not return.
So, she rose.
She raised from lie and went downstairs. In the dark, she lit candles that were there and looked with a pleasure on inner chamber in midst and process of a change. In daylight, the process would return: refinement of home’s inner-heart in becoming as she wished for it to be.
Soon. Soon, she thought to herself with an inner mirth.
She left the inner chamber in midst and state of change, candles left to light, as she went in search of a story—a story known, intimate in heart, but that she doubted, questioned, had been written as she thought it.
She looked to shelves and tablesides, but the story wasn’t there. Restless, awake, mind working in the night, she climbed again the stairwell turn in rise and height to high vault room.
Again a candle, single light, she stood in the open space: bare wood floors, sunlight window in ceiling that showed waxing moon—silver-lavender in light—barren walls, plain and white, save for a single frame—black and white picture of prairie scene where one lone tree stood strong.
She thought to a Paulo Coelho book and to parallels of a story’s tell near to, but not exact—maybe not even close—to the story in her mind; a story present, wanting told, though still hidden in her depth.
She stared on the image. She stared on the tree. She stared on the barren scene in center of open wall, to barren room, more empty in vast of space.
Wavetop crest of undercurrent rippled through her spirit—sense of the story’s rise.
It moved again, and she was ready, catching when it came.
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One there was a little girl with dreams to see the world. Names and places, pictures she’d seen, she vowed to see them all and dreamed adventures of a life abroad. As she grew and life afforded, trusting dreams—she followed.
Again and again in adventure-seek, she sent about into explore’s escape and search for treasure of a missing piece.
Where it was, she didn’t know but believed, with child-innocence when dream was first received, that it was there.
Farther and further, greater distances and exotic of escape, she adventured, explored, and sought. Yet, the more alien the land, the more lost she became in belief of treasure’s find.
Maybe dream was wrong.
Doubt and a sadness both encroached and shadowed even the most sun-filled lands.
Why? Mind didn’t know, but she felt it in her spirit.
Lost—knowing precisely where she was.
Then one day, gifted sign appeared in an old, forgotten, and unwanted auction find that spoke to her and no one else: a picture in a frame.
Single tree in prairie scene, alone, tall, and broad as life in the open space.
She saw.
The treasure was not in the journey but in the coming home, in seek of the life one thinks one wants—believing it afar—until one day, a change of heart and realization the life and dream were near and waiting all along: a treasure in a field, a treasure beneath a tree, evening shade—waiting since beginning—but only journey could reveal.
Discerning sign, trusting dream—she followed.
She returned to beginning, to open fields, to open scene, to treasure in the trees.
It was here she found the peace.