Darkness and Light

On a dark and cool Friday night, a depressed and stressed-out woman went for a walk, alone. As she walked the foggy, abandoned streets, she pondered how everything was wrong. How she couldn't take it anymore. How she was nothing and nobody and too tired and too alone to carry on. She pulled her scarf tighter against the chill, and crossed the dimly lit side-streets like a ghost.

She made no sound.

Led by some invisible force, she found her way to the big park, and wandered across the damp black field until she came to the baseball diamond. Then she sat on the dugout bench, in pitch blackness, and waited...to cry. It was not long. The heavy fog and intimate darkness muffled the sound of her sobs.

She sat there for hours, until her fingers and toes were icy, until the moon was high. Until the young lovers on the bench under the streetlamp were done. The whole time, they did not know she was there.

And then she walked home, only mildly soothed by her emotional release, but still hating herself for being weak.

The next day she spent some time with friends and lamented her pain with her husband, but nothing really eased the fear and the panic. Later that night, she craved music. She darkened the house, lit the candles and put on her favourite CD. Her children came quickly, and she instinctually taught them to recognize the different instruments, the parts of music, the beat - they were entranced. She showed them how one was "supposed" to move to the different kinds of music.

And then, her 5-yr-old son said something so profound, it shook her to her core.

"Can I just dance what's in my heart?"

His innocent wisdom lit her insides like a burning flame. She accepted her sadness and fear. And as the feelings flowed over her, she was no longer afraid, and she did not drown.

That night they all danced what was in their hearts.