"You Don't Belong here!" I've lost count of how many times I told myself this.....
I saw her when I was still word-drunk. Walking out of the
library to where my car was parked: this is where she waited for me.
I looked down and there she was. I was woozy and caught off balance between her beauty and the hovering word-love surrounding me. While some may not understand what I mean, it was almost like the way it feels after a multi-orgasm sexual experience where you are so completely with your lover yet also transcendent above humanity.
That is the condition she knocked me into just by showing her face to me.
A yellow leaf, tinged with red, she rested on the concrete amidst brown, normally aged leaves.
This is January. I certainly didn’t expect to see such an autumnal leaf after New Year’s Day has come and gone. Granted, I live in Bakersfield, California which is hardly what I could have expected in New England but here, after I got over the shock of her beauty, seemed to fit perfectly after all.
I still stood, unable to get into my car.
My creative side took over and I imagined a conversation.
“You don’t belong here,” they said, the others who surrounded her.
“Your colors are all wrong,” they said, embarrassing her.
“You should be more like us, you stick out like a sore thumb,” they scoffed, uncaring at how such words might make her feel.
How often do we, beautiful beings outside the norm, hear these words about us - if not out of other's mouths, do we hear them inside our heads?
Forget for a moment it was me standing by a leaf in a library parking lot and think for a moment about what it was like when you heard words such as these:
“You don’t belong here.”
“You are all wrong.”
“You should be more like us.”
The combination of these words say, “We don’t like you and we won’t like you, ever, so you are bound to lead a lonely existence unless you conform.”
I smiled in recognition before I pulled out my phone to take a photo.
Finally I was able to get into my car and drive away, but not before being humbled by a surprising red and yellow leaf who suddenly became my teacher in a library parking lot in Bakersfield in January.
Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot
Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook (THANK YOU!)
© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott
This is my fourth post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
Julie Jordan Scott
has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator
and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award
winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother
Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam
champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS and will be traveling throughout the US to bring this
unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she
finds the passion & the interest.
