How Deep the Pain

From whence does my pain come and how deep is the well? Why am I so troubled by such sadness? Perhaps, it comes from the playground where when mixing with my own peers, I found out I was something different, something to abhor.  Don't we always abhor what is different?  For what makes us different?

I don't seem different, I have two arms and legs, two eyes, one mouth, two ears and a nose.   No it is deeper then that.  It comes from a place from within.  When others see blue I see purple and an array of other colors some never seen before.   It is the little girl who sees people floating on just love up into the heavens or that ordinary things are space ships.  It is a rich inner life not partial to media or entertainment.  I can see worlds where others see just land. In some other world, I might have been cherished for my genius. I might have had Medici patron of my work.  I might have been great but no I live in the flat lands of Kansas and Missouri. People don't expect much of life here, They grow up, grow fat and have babies and their babies have babies.  No one sees beyond the muddy river or the brown and grays of winter. Cancun may be a vacation destination at some point in their existence but nothing more, no dreams or imagination. Perhaps once they had dreams but so many voices told them they are unpractical.  I know those voices too, the tell me the same things. I could give up and live their ordinary Midwestern life and stifle like so many leaves on a rotting vine. Then, I will never have lived.  

In my darker moments I grieve for what might have been, for greatness underachieved.   I have not given up upon it yet.  I have not given up on what is possible and what is real to me.  Would we blot out the beautiful thing, the thing that flies high in the sky in multicolored splendor?  I know I wouldn't.  When I was a teacher,  I always saw what was so richly full of potential. I tried to tease it out. I told them to write what they know.  Is it basketball? Well tell me about basketball: its colors, its history, how do you play, who is the best.  Don't stop there find out more and let that lead you to another subject and on and on. Please don't tell me my students are complacent now, that so many dreams were unrealistic. Don't you fall for it my children!  I haven't yet.  

The world is cruel, this is true but why must I be part of it?  I wasn't born to be cruel.  I was born to shake hands with a smile and a warm face.  I was born for compassion and tenderness. Maybe this brings me hurt but I wouldn't want to be among those who choose not to feel.  A favorite minister of mine loved the song that says, "Let there be Peace on earth and let it begin with me." this has kind of always been my philosophy.  I will not beat them but I will show them a better way, a truer way, a way where we only reach down to help each other up.  Oh, may I be equal to the task of my beautiful heart and beautiful dream.