By Amaya Gayle Gregory
Sedona, AZ — A bit of me is falling apart. It happens. I’m a Raggedy Ann doll and my stuffing is poking out of the wounds of life. Those places that were tightly packed aren’t so rigid anymore.
The traumas of life that compressed my natural beingness into me-ing-ness, the mistrust I unwittingly invited to distort this beautiful body, the ways I closed myself off from anyone who might hurt me, the anyone that became everyone, arms open wide in embrace with distance built right in, all of the ways we humans try to protect ourselves, none of them alleviated the pain, healed the sick or raised the dead. They didn’t live up to their hype at all. Not one wound healed without creating another. If anything, my attempts to hide from the pains of life made it worse.
At last, this bit of fluff is falling apart. I’m guessing living is a lifetime of torn coverings, rotting stuffing, threads laid bare. There’s a lot here to unpack.
How did I ever function like that, stuffed to overflowing with every protection charm known to man or woman?
Life is amazing. It fills us up only to empty us out. Maybe we wouldn’t appreciate the emptiness if we hadn’t experienced the gluttony, or is appreciation simply another bit of stuffing ready to jettison the form, like meaning and purpose and ideas of God already have?
I don’t know. It seems I’m saying that a lot these days and really meaning it. The more stuffing I lose the freer I feel to be as I am without need of anyone’s approval., freer to be me and free to love this world, this life deeply freely. They seem to be interconnected. I am not surprised.
Life strips us bare. Yay life! Could I recognize bare-ness without the painful stripping. I am living Yin Yang, no symbol here, the stripping and the bare-ness, the stuffing and the falling apart, the protection and the love, the me-ing-ness and beingness.
God, I love this life! It’s days like today that unravel old wounds and empty them with love’s gentle breath, exposing the for-giving-ness available with each heartbeat. Woosh! There goes anger at this world.
• Amaya Gayle is the author of Actuality; infinity at play, published by New Saram Press. https://amzn.to/3Rd4CTY
Image: Worthpoint.com, antique Raggedy Ann doll