Shadow Places

Welcome back to the inner ponderings of my mind.

Deep thoughts, by me:

There was a time when I felt like I was in a shadow place most of the time; that I lived there and was becoming pasty and golem-like. It was dark in there, dank and hard to see. I cracked my shin (painfully) on truth and lie alike, more than once... and more than once I felt in my heart that I was a walking bruise as a result. This is the shadow place. In case you were wondering, it is not a good place to hang out

The thing is, everybody has this place. The question is do you live there or do you navigate it with purpose or do you deny it? There is no escaping it, because it just *is*. You cannot protect yourself from it. Because, see, shadows serve a purpose. They *are* protection... they offer cool respite from the noon-day sun, they protect us from its rays when it gets too intense and they describe the denseness and opacity of the shape of an object when we cannot see the object itself.

So. What does one *do* with one's shadow place?

For me, for me... I have learned to pause when I find myself there; to think first of protection and safety. Then, I illuminate. Because, see, shadows are cast in sharpest relief in the brightest light. When things are nebulous and undefined and hard to grasp, it is the edges that show me the shape and depth of the shadow. So I look for the edges of things. Edges speak to me. They tell me where things begin and end... and in the absence of knowing, define in some small way, the scope of what is contained within. Because see, it's *my* shadow place. It may have hard things in it that bruise me, but I don't have to whisper or tiptoe around them. I can turn on the hip-hop, open the windows, sweep up the dust bunnies, pull out the old credenza, climb on top and dance (just a little bit, just for myself ).