Fresh Start ...Part 2 ...My Beginning in a Coloured World
When you’re first in love everything seems brighter. Marin made the russet shades of autumn grow even more brilliant.
I had been in sorrow for a year grieving Regan but now my spirits lifted. The sky was bluer—the air fresher, and the woods, like my heart, were on fire.
The drive up to my family’s country home was breathtaking especially considering the estate was situated on the Niagara escarpment. A tidal wave of colour had submerged everything and it seemed the old tired world I knew had perished and both it and I had been reborn.
The cool breeze shuddering against the car helped drown out the pounding of my heart. I barely knew Mar, but already was thoroughly enchanted.
She seemed happy too—occasionally she’d reach across and put her hand over mine, and her smile melted everything that grief and loss had frozen inside me.
The suffocating heaviness was gone and I could breathe freely again, and smile spontaneously—and yes, even wipe away a stray tear of joy from my eyes.
It was October and I was in love. It was perfect.
My family instantly took to her—even Quincy, our finicky golden retriever, adopted her and lay beside her, his muzzle gently resting on her foot.
“You seem to have won some hearts,” Mom smiled at Mar, while subtly winking at me.
Yes, she has won hearts, I smiled inwardly, feeling as if my own would burst.
After lunch, she and I hiked to the ridge where Regan had her accident. I had to show her—to get it over with and out of the way.
She peered cautiously over the edge at the green and yellow quilt of fields below. “It’s lovely here, but windy.”
“That’s how it happened,” I said solemnly. “One sudden gust of wind and Regan was swept over the edge.”
“How terrible for you to witness, Jess.”
“No, thankfully I didn’t see it. Regan and Charly had hiked up here—Charly’s our neighbour—you’ll get to meet her later.”
She shook her head sobered at the thought of what transpired.
“I just felt I had to bring you here—to make sure there was nothing unspoken between us. I’ve spent a year grieving Regan, but all my sorrow won’t bring her back.”
She looped her arm around mine and leaned against me. I inhaled the faint scent of her perfume.
“That’s lovely—your perfume. What scent is it?”
She laughed, “I’m not wearing perfume. I guess I’m just a country girl at heart.”
I breathed in the fragrance of her skin and hair—it was fresh as snow with a hint of green apple.
“You really are a country girl,” I laughed. “I like that.”
We shared our first kiss on the ridge, buffeted by autumn winds, and watching a hawk circle the fields below.
There wasn't a cloud on our horizon and that in itself should have warned me to be on the lookout for a sudden change of circumstances, but I was too happy to notice.
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Thinking back to my moments of being happy, as i read the above, I had the thought that if I could wipe out sad or happy memories, I might be tempted into wiping out the happy ones - for they are the ones whose chains bite into my skin, so that I fear to fly again.
Sad memories I can shunt aside so that I mostly ignore them - after all, I sort of expected them as being the cost of being alive.
Happy memories are the napthalm that burns, turning me into a coward, for I do not want to ever endure such losses again.
The sad thing is, even when I read of such a moment of happiness, I ache with the thought of what he or she is about to endure, knowing they will never be as pure again, for happiness scars us in ways even sadness cannot.
Your last statement is profound - I'll have to meditate on that - I tend to anesthetize myself from pain as a form of self preservation