We all have that child in us, right?
At least I hope we do, since I’d rather not be alone in this sad but necessary realization. I’d love to believe I am not the only little girl doing her best to make her life happen from a bottom of a tall tower that seems impossible to ever get out of .
Ellie had this thought every morning after shaking herself awake from another essentially sleepless night. This prayer was her daily bread, giving her enough energy to trudge to the icy wash basin across the straw strewn floor and dab her face with cold water. Ellie was trapped in that part of her personal journey, her path to growth, that felt like a dungeon out of a sad and scary fairy tale, so she tended, even though she was far from that childhood self, she tended, she needed to visit that little girl…maybe 7 or 8 years old…?…Ellie needed to pay attention every day…her heart pounded for the fear and sorrow coming from the child, as she stared plaintively up the endless cold stone wall to the tiny window that seemed lit by the sunlight the little one yearned to feel and not just see.
The little one, younger maybe than 7 or 8 Ellie sensed, the little one who seemed soft more like a puppy than a human child…she needed attention, and so Ellie embraced the tiny Ellie with the daily embrace of thought …the comforting strength of imagination…..the kindly ministrations of genuine caring.
The dungeon of early childhood bound her, and she knew the only proper way up and out through that distant window filled with sunlight was through her…she needed no key, for she was the key.
Soon her breakfast would arrive, such as it was, with its hard bread role and stale wedge of rind hard cheese.
She had vague memories of warm sweet porridge.
Porridge from another lifetime.
Birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, the Poet wrote…..those clouds of glory He wrote about had long since failed the little girl…..ephemeral things those clouds of glory, clouds of anything could not really be depended on, both the little Ellie and the grown up Ellie knew….a lesson so early learned, it barely raised consciousness…but now….a new path, a clear one, a protected one was being formed, and grown up Ellie was grateful for the growing strength to be able to help forge it…..her little girl deserved her best efforts.
And she promised warm porridge aplenty.
Many prisons would give way, would become unbound, by buttery, sweet, warm nourishing porridge, and Ellie was ready to nourish : Amore e magia nella cuccina di Mama….she would become her own Momma, as all little girls are required to become, and life would feel boundless, sunny and good.