tumblers in a lock

The world felt undeniable portentious this morning. I wish I knew why. I felt poised on the edge of something wonderful, as if I had just had a conversation with someone I knew was going to change my life. But that wasn't it. I was sitting at work smiling and realized that I was really happy, almost in the way you're happy when you have a good secret and haven't told anyone yet. (But that's not it either.)

It's strange that it would happen today. All week my heart has been breaking for my brother and his wife who lost three friends to an icy road on Sunday. They are too far away for me to be able to put my arms around them and there aren't words in the world that would make it better. But there's no denying it, something was good today. Something, somewhere in the universe was waiting in the wings. It was as if a key was fitted into a lock and the tumbers have started to drop. I wish I knew which door is opening.

It would be fairly easy to say that this is just a shadow of what is going around me. Several friends have added children to their families this week, their lives are changing, maybe there's something in the air. But it doesn't feel like that. In a way that I cannot really describe (although it seems I feel compelled to try) whatever this was was so very personal. It was undeniably mine. Perhaps it is a great poem waiting to be written, maybe it is a friend I have almost met. Or maybe it is a new truth hovering almost, but not quite realized; waiting for just a little more acceptance, a touch more willingness to encourage it into consciousness.

I found myself in an art store the other day buying a new sketchbook, a good pencil and some watercolor brushes. Usually I ache for words, it's been a long time since colour and line have called to me. Maybe this thing that's waiting will find me in those rough, thick pages. But I don't think that's it either.