This is Our Neighborhood

Last night my husband and I went for a walk and halfway down our street I noticed it was unusually quiet. Normally at this row of tenements people are hanging out on porches with babies and dogs, overflowing onto the sidewalk. I saw a neighbor that lives in the cottage across the street and said, "It's quiet tonight." "There was a fight, you know the little bird of a woman who lives across the street?" she said, pointing. "She was beaten by her husband and went running down the street screaming 'call the police.' She's gone, we haven't seen her since."

Where is this lovely woman and her adorable child and their beloved dog? I liked her kid with big brown eyes and black eyelashes who would hop off the porch in spite of being partially paralyzed, wearing a brace on his left leg. He'd come over to see us, leading with his good leg, and tell us not to be afraid of Princess, his gray and white pit bull. Lily and Princess would greet each other, affectionately sniffing each other's snout. Sometimes it was hard to understand what the boy was saying because half of his mouth was paralyzed. His right arm was stuck in a bent position like a wing with his little brown fingers curled up but he hopped about moving his other arm freely, telling us stories, petting Lily. We fell in love with him and enjoyed saying hello each day. His mom would look up from her phone and smile from the porch. I hope wherever she is she's safe with her child and their dog.

This is our neighborhood and to some degree this is every neighborhood. Human struggle is everywhere whether it takes place in raw exposed battles or neat and tidy concealed ones. I have been thinking a lot about trusting and having faith versus fear and the desire to control. When I struggle I realize it is my fear that drives the "control" bus. Einstein said, "The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe." The real challenge for me, and the more freeing and frightening one, is to embrace my deeper struggles on the page, on the canvas, and between my ears, to tune into that friendly creative universe, sink in, and let go. To answer the call. To follow the path, the one lined up within my spine that belongs to me.