Think of what is lovely

Something is wrong. My whole body aches. I can barely move. I can't think for the thickness, like a sea fog, in my head. When I open my eyes, everything looks like a colourful ink painting with soft edges.

Voices are muffled, as if they are several rooms away and yet their hands touch me, telling me that they are here.

What has happened?

Where am I?

And more importantly, who am I?

The voices speak care and concern. I see blue and green. Smell bitter herbal medicine. But cannot seem to muster the strength to do more than squeeze the hand in mine.

Then, as if a curtain has dropped, I am cast back out to sea. Lost in the fog.

Trying to find home, but knowing I will likely never be able to see it again. Looking and searching for something I've lost but not knowing what it is. Not daring to know what is lost.

Another one.

Another one.

Lost. Forever lost.

Return to solid land comes to me in drips, drops and dollops like crumbs and cream. A bit here. A bit there. Reality thickens into a sticky custard, trapping me into a sphere of the tangible.

My centre comes first. Firm and solid, like a ball of carven jade. There are cracks and chips in it. Brittle, fragile, but recognisable as me. My centre has been in battle. Survived, but remains scarred. I don't know why it had felt so soft before. Like pudding. Tofu.

I wonder where I have been hiding? How long since I was last awake and knowing what was happening around me?

Why am I so afraid to wake? To open my eyes? What has happened that I wish I had remained in the dark fog? Never finding land? What do I wish not to remember so much that I pried out my own centre and put something else in its place?

Who am I? And what have I done?

What has been done to me?

Breath comes in shallow puffs. Every movement of my chest aches.

I have lost something. Something very important. What is it? I want to seek it and yet I am held back by an irrational fear. I should not seek the lost in case it is more than I want to know.

Above me, a silken, peach coloured canopy cascades to become lovely draping curtains. I look at the translucent drapes, their sheen and their soft shadows. The pleasantness of the colour. Kind to the eyes. The shades of peach where light and shadow mix show pinks and oranges and yellows. A soft breeze stirs the curtain and belatedly brings me the scent of freshly baked cookies and cake. Tea and soup. Bitter medicine and flowers. Blossoms, I think. Fresh blossoms. Is it spring? Or is it a perfume?

Far away, a flute plays to the singing birds, trilling tunes to them. The birds trill back to the flute. A lovely sound. I would like to watch the flutist and see the birds gathered around him. It would make a beautiful sight. Something worth capturing in an ink painting. Suddenly my fingers itch to pick up my painting brush to let the picture emerge on paper.

I'd use more watery colours for a mountainous background, with an open walled pergola in the foreground. A brook to one side and a flutist with his eyes closed, so enraptured in his own music that he doesn't see how the cautious animals have crept close to watch and listen.

Beyond the flute, I hear the musical tinkling sound of water falling and providing a backdrop to the flute. For a moment in my memory, I glimpse a garden of fountains and beautiful water features surrounded by green leaves and bright flowers. Birds and butterflies and pretty women picnic among them. A place where I feel safe and comfortable and where I belong. Another picture to capture onto paper. But then it is gone again and I wonder if such a wonderful place truly exists. I would like to go back there, although where 'there' exactly is, remains a mystery I am too tired to dig into at the moment.

I listen to the feel of my body and then at the many signals indicating things that are troublesome, I decide I don't want to know. Sometimes it is better not to know. Better to rest in the beauty I can see and hear around me. Concentrate on what is lovely, good and right. Don't stare into the dark lest it rise to envelope me once more.

My eyes trace the embroidered flowers in my blanket. I examine the shape, the colour and evenness of the thread. The embroiderer must have gotten distracted for a stitch or two here. The tension is uneven Nevertheless, the needlework is far better than anything I could do. My mother and sisters used to moan over my coarse work. Even my brothers laughed, although they had worn the ugly things I made them with pride. They used to fight for the opportunity to create the finished product to one of my newest designs...

For some reason, the nostalgic memory is ruthlessly cut off before the memory leads to more than just remembering facts. That's right. Don't think. Look without seeing. Listen without hearing. Don't look into the past. See the present and all the peach. So much peach.

I never thought I was a peach person. Maybe I am remembering wrongly?