Funny, at first blush I’m tempted to throw all the people into the fire. No, of course not the people themselves. Just their pulling on me. Their expectation. Their burden and insistence. Their interference and interruption. The way they throw themselves onto the path that a moment ago was clear, infinite, wending toward some unknowable possibility.

Instead what I am finding is feeding the flames are indeed people, but not because I’ve dashed their need of me against hot burning logs. Rather, what’s going up in smoke is the notion that I can do anything, anything at all, without them. Without you. That in fact these insistent souls aren’t roadblocks, or prison wardens, or corsets, or trip wires, or anything else my overwhelmed, over-efforting ego has named them over the years.

On the contrary, they are the way. Their insistence is the insistence of god. They are me being shown to me. They are the wisdom my own mind can’t touch, the love that fills the deep holes in my heart. They are guideposts when my singular GPS goes on the fritz. They are the fuel for my fire, for my car, for my own two legs.

I am sorry, so sorry to all you who have tried, and whom I’ve pushed aside, annoyed and asserting that I can do it my own damn self, if only I had a moment’s peace.

There you all are, standing in a line, holding candles, offering quiet fire, offering the peace I have always, always sought.

Prompt inspired by this song …