Know Thyself

Liberty   •   2011   •   by Linda Silver   •   Paint filter applied to original photograph

Freedom rides a pale horse and gallops along a gentle, foamy surf.  She rides fast and she feels the soft wind against her skin.  She is shimmering in a gossamer billowy dress, but short, so that she can hold on to the mare with her strong legs and feel the warm air encompass all of her.  She closes her eyes as she rides and the colors come to canvas and the words come to paper.  Her name is Liberty and she is mine.

A soaring, imposing figure in black and white stands upon the threshold of the beach house far in the distance.  She beckons the rider with a display of children, a sheaf of pages scribed with numbers and dollar signs, an old woman, messy floors, dirty laundry and responsibilities of assorted ilk.  Her name is Sister Catherine and she is part of me.

Tomes and quills surround Crystal on the sunny veranda.  She reads the books by Sigmund Freud, Virginia Wolf, Stephen King.  She even reads cereal boxes and pickle jars.  And then she reads textbooks to learn how to help those she loves, and those she likes. She joins communities or she researches alone in the glowing window to discover solutions to the tribulations that complicate life. She hungers for answers as to why things are and why they are not.  She has to know. It has to make sense, if only in a distant universe. Where did this come from? What does that mean? Learning is her comfort and her passion.  She seeks knowledge and willingly shares it with me.

Fiona selects my clothes most days and especially enjoys the task for special occasions.  She organizes the items of my closet into a blended rainbow. She folds and stacks my jeans and sweaters and she arranges my prized handbags upright and stores them in their protective cloth bags. She instinctively knows which scarf coordinates with which jacket.  My shoes are thoughtfully placed in little cubbies that run along the bottom half of my side of the walk-in. She keeps my cosmetics well stocked.  Fiona presents me to the world each day.

Despair is a dark sister, looming just beyond the shoreline, closing in, moving out, leading and following.  She keeps me up at night.  She makes me cry.  I feel her in the pit of my stomach and I know her pain.  She wears a cloak so that I can’t see her face as she floats away in temporary retreat. I can’t catch her so to make her disappear, go away. She is called Marie and she has grown with me.

Joy is bright.  Her clothes are red, orange and gold.  She sails the calm ocean waters in the beautiful sunlight. Her eyes are gentle and smiling, always smiling.  Her laughter fills evolving companions, be they male, female, canine.  Any who surround her.  Her wit may surface in a word or a phrase or a random thought. Absurd situations intrigue her and she can find the laughter in them.  She is twin with Lonnie, who is now starboard and looking upward into billowy clouds gathering on the distant horizon. Lonnie always sees the silver lining and the possibilities – no matter what.  Their humor and hope glide me forward.

Without all of them I am nothing.