From Now On

by Anne Gehman

“Come in and please excuse the mess. I wasn’t expecting guests today.
Here let me open the blinds to let the sunshine in
for you.
(I’ve been fasting from it these days.
I know, I know, get your vitamin D, the thing is, it hurts my eyes and my heart.)
“We can sit here if you want, but let me first push all this pain aside. It’s been piling up but never mind that.
Care for some chamomile tea?
Now getting straight to the point, you wondered why I don’t come to sewing circle.”
(I see in your eyes how serious you are
and I don’t want to disappoint you, again,
but here goes anyway.
I’ve been living frozen, afraid not to be you and so ashamed to be me.
Blinds pulled, afraid of Vitamin D.
I’ve allowed sewing circled thoughts among others, to wrap me up in a yarn ball, impossible for me to unravel on my own.
I can’t make quilts like you can. The sewing machine hums for you but for me it’s a cacophony of dissonance.
I’ve been hiding something here in this napkin.
Years ago I buried it,
thinking it frivolous, not worth mentioning among glinting needles and boxes
holding warmth and hope, boldly marked, “CAM.”
It’s just a pen, brushes and pastels. I didn’t realize when I buried them I was burying myself
alive, which explains in part the reason for the pulled blinds and seclusion.
Friend, you want me to come to sewing circle, I will, but from now on,
I will bring my easel.

Anne Gehman loves quiet corners, children’s books, candlelight, and the idea of raising chickens. She is learning wounds can be turned into art, and that home is near God’s heart.

Photography by Kenneth Godoy