You were once my epiphany

Sitting under a birch tree, a girl with sunset hair, constellations strewn across her face, and green eyes worth more than emeralds, laughs with her head thrown back.

Her name is Wind.

This Book is for her, in the hope that I shall lay my eyes upon her soon.

I miss you darling, even though I never met you.

&

I sit here, expecting nothing. Nothing, thats all my life has been really. But now you have arrived, and you are a weary traveler. You come from someplace distant, I'm sure of it. The ocean? No, that couldn't be true, you don't smell like salt. Perhaps Europe? Tanzania? Jamaica? The Amper River? Antartica? It doesn't Matter. Forget how weary you are, or how far you've come. Forget the miles your feet have carried you, the things you escape from, the people you've known and the society you grew up in. I need someone to tell my story to. It's lurked inside me, and etched this property in it's lonely shapes for far too long. So long that I've grown wrinkles in my once ironed face, and stardust has fallen on my hair, turning it from a thick dark shade of a raven's feathers, the air of the night's sky, to silver. It drives me stark mad, how I have to hide this story, how I can only tell it to the stars and the trees. -They listen, but they never provide me with any input. No one I have told believes my tale. They call me delirious. Or ungodly, or insane. They find the things that I'm about to tell you unbelievable. Because they refuse to believe the things of which they've never seen. To be honest, I don't blame them. I was once like that myself after all. Close minded and repugnant. But those statements and claims came from the people that once inhabited this empty house, this empty town. But maybe, perhaps you are foreign enough to listen to my story. Maybe, just maybe, you won't scoff at me of call me delirious, ungodly, or insane. Perhaps you will listen to my side of this tale. -Of both happiness and sadness. Of the sun and moon. Of Bohemian Queens, of kisses and tears. Of Latin and English. So please, I ask of you weary traveler, sit down, drink a glass of water from the the stream besides this home, and do not allow the gates of your ears to shut. I must tell you my story. I have to at all costs, before I depart from this earth. -After all, I'm ninety-seven. So here it is, the tale that I've waited to tell truthfully all my life. Weary Traveler, are you Ready?

&

&

I awoke on the first day of summer in the year 1902. For a brief moment I sat up in bed and watched as the light came from the window and reflected off of the glass beads dangling from the ceiling. The colors swirled around with the light brought by the new day and danced. I whispered their colors in latin. Most of the girls I knew back in the town and at school adorned themselves with the sensual words of the French, or the Spanish, but at the age of ten I began to study latin and somehow got a good handle on it. Sometimes my Father would remark that it was a language too difficult for a girl. I especially liked Latin because there were little who could speak it fluently and I adored being able to do things that other people couldn't. So I saw the sun peak through from the earth and shine right through the rubrum, caeruelum, rosea, aurantiaco, and viridi beads. I grinned like a little girl as the lights shone on the white sheets of my bed, then slipped out from the covers and carefully let one foot touch the soft carpet. I tip toed like a dancer toward the exuberant window and then looked to the mirror besides it. It was as small as an envelope cut in half and it's border was lined with the kind of stones romans would use for mosaics. -Or was it the greeks? Never mind. -Either way, all I could see was my face. I hate to be self indulgent, but I will admit, back then I was quite a sweetheart. I had curls in my hair, pink lips, and a heart shaped face. My limbs were long and loose, there was not but a single scar on my knees, and I owned clean fingernails. The only thing I suppose was an issue to some although not to me was my thick dark eyebrows, which I never bothered to pluck. -My Mother would always nag at me about it and claim it made me look like a hairy beast, but I didn't see anything like that in the mirror. I saw bits of maturity, bits of unique individualism. I preferred this rather than attempting to look like every other girl at school. I wanted to do what I wanted to do. I got the water from the pump and filled up the pitcher and washed my face above the bowl with a bar of soap. I put on my underclothes, stockings, and my white dress with my black buckle shoes. I skipped the bloody corset even though my Mother had been recently nagging at me to start wearing it now that I was "turning into a woman" whatever that really meant to her. I plained to just stand up straight and suck in my stomach until I was out of her sight. Once I had finished that, I made my way down the steps. Downstairs I could smell eggs, tea, and fruit.