The light seems different this morning, somehow. Crisper, perhaps. She watches it seeping under the curtains of her bedroom, although she hasn’t moved yet. To be honest, it has become much harder of late to find any inclination to get out of bed at all. She knew this would happen eventually. Had tried to prepare herself for it. But how can you, really? Especially someone like her. One of ‘those’ people who rose out of bed prior to their alarm sounding and performed numerous tasks with a sense of purpose, before most people had even sipped their first morning coffee.
She does not recognise that version of herself now.
But as she watches the thick carpet of her bedroom drink up the glow of dawn, she feels a tentative sense of change. In those dark days of January, danger had lurked everywhere – the strangers wrapped up like packages, ready to cough and sneeze in her direction. Or the pavements slick with ice, treacherous to a body now birdlike in dimensions. It hadn’t been worth the risk to leave the house.
Now though, it’s as if the morning is speaking to her. Urging her. Walk, it seems to say. Just walk.
She had always been a walker. In fact, she used to venture out each weekend with large groups of fellow hikers. She would lead the march up the wind blasted hills around her city, feeling her legs pumping like pistons as she strove to reach the summit, where she would stand looking down on the patchwork landscape below. Her summit now, however, is very different. Readying herself for this expedition outside has almost been enough exertion in itself.
Almost – but not quite.
She stands at the threshold of her front door, gazing out at the silver mist rising in the fields beyond her home, softening the shades of green. She pulls the hat down a little further over her ears, although looking up towards the watery sun, she wonders if she even needs it today. Perhaps she is wearing it out of habit more than anything else. But the thought of going without it makes her feel too exposed, too vulnerable. No, she isn’t ready for that just yet.
Her steps are careful initially – she doesn’t fully trust that the slight dampness of the ground is not unseasonable black ice, ready to send her hurtling towards the concrete. But after a few minutes, she can feel something of a rhythm beginning again in her steps. She knows not to get carried away, not to venture too far from her house, but with every beat of her trainers against the ground, she feels something expanding within her.
When she reaches the bench, half a mile or so from her house, she stops. She can feel the lightness in her head that warns her to rest. Of course, this distance is nothing compared to what she was once capable of, but she mustn’t think like that. Instead, she sits in the stillness, closing her eyes and tilting her head upward to feel the warmth on her face, listening to the tuning of the morning orchestra. It is hard to stop her mind from wandering back. Back to that day, when she sat in the tiny room, looking up at the looming figure of the consultant above her. Watching his mouth moving, but not really hearing any sound, save for the whooshing of her own blood in her ears. She knew she would have to repeat these words herself over and over again to the important people in her life. Sit them down and try to reassure them, whilst the entire bottom of her world completely fell away. He had asked if she had any questions but she couldn’t form a single coherent thought and simply stuffed the leaflets that he had proffered into her sagging handbag on the floor.
She also remembers how, as she walked through the sliding doors back towards her car, she felt completely certain that every single happy moment of her life from that point onward would be irrevocably tinged with a sense of loss.
But, as she is pulled back to the present by an eruption of feathers against wind from the tree nearby, she realises that this former sense of certainty is starting to loosen its grip on her a little.
She sits a while longer, observing the procession of crocuses at her feet and marvelling at how such seemingly fragile things can remain unscathed by even the harshest of winters. Before she begins her journey back, she pauses to watch the birds once more as they curve and soar overhead and allows herself to acknowledge the faint flicker of something deep within her, something she has not felt for a long time.
Something that feels very much like hope.
'Wherever there are birds, there is hope.' ― Mehmet Murat Ildan