Beneath the snow - fear

Fear, and it was not allowed. Fear, and it could not be. They were not allowed to see it or notice it. Everything was covered under a thick, white layer of snow. In the whiteness of the snow: the tiny footprints of a little blackbird. No one saw it. No one could see it.

No one could feel it - and yet it was there. When the sun was shining and we were playing outside. When we were on holiday. When we were sitting together at the dinner table. Fear was the background, the backdrop behind a mist. Fear of what was going to happen. Fear from the past. Fear of the illness that kept coming back.

Being positive and laughing, always. Staying busy, making phone calls, chocolate and wine. Doing things right and being appreciated for it. Everything to keep us away from what was underneath. So we would not have to feel it.

And still I felt it - completely alone. Overwhelming, in the darkness of the night. Fear became my greatest enemy. And there was an even greater enemy: panic. Panic and fear together on a fast galloping horse that keeps catching up with me, again and again, and frightening me every time.

I tried everything to keep it under control. From a very young age. I couldn't do it. In the end, I couldn’t.

And now the white horse walks beside me. I am learning to ride through fields full of poppies and on cold mountain peaks. I gallop on his back. I fall. I look into his large, brown eyes. I feel his breath. I feel life. It is very quiet - and it is storming.

The trees don't mind.
Neither do the mountains.
The birds are singing, as always.

July 2022