KISS OF A TENDER SHADOW
KISS OF A TENDER SHADOW
By John Tuft
“An ache we make peace with, is still an ache.” JJ looked at the words of her daily meditation prompt. Making peace with aches was something that haunted her. She tried to begin and end each day in this spot, a combination of sanctuary and grotto. It was the bank of a small cove, where an old swing hung from an oak, looking out over the water. She made her way there with her cup of coffee in the mornings and a glass of Chablis in the evening. It was her communion, shared with the shadows of her life. It was a place for meditation; it was a place of escape. Her very presence filled the space as she was accustomed to doing in most spaces that she entered. Her and her shadows. No one else saw them. She hoped.
Some of the shadows were disguised as regrets. Some were faint voices, disembodied echoes of her life. Her body image. Someone she once loved told her that her smile lines were the most attractive feature of her beautiful face. At age 56, they were becoming more prominent. As she sat in the early morning light being dappled by passing through the leaves of the trees, making patches of light and shadow on her face, the fingers of her right hand found themselves tracing those lines. She was used to smiling through regrets. She worked hard to keep her body trim and fit, making fashion statements to the world at large by how cloth draped over her and around her form incited passion to even the most plain of people. The mirror is both friend and foe, her eyes however reveal all. Shadows have no eyes, but eyes can be filled with shadow.
Some shadows are fears. Young girls need to be nurtured. Nurtured by their mothers. Her mother’s shadow is the least well defined, yet it holds great power over her. When she whispers to the spirits, it is her father’s face that comes to mind. Large, confident, strong, he cherished her. Her mother’s name is rarely spoken. It makes her vaguely uneasy to contemplate this. The space in her heart that is to be molded by the nurture of a mother is full of empty echoes. “Jennifer Joanna, why don’t you give your mother a kiss?” said with a cold stare, echoes in that space in her heart, inspiring fear still to this day. JJ rouses herself to get into her day. She must go pretend to be someone else. All the world is a stage, yet her stage is her world.
In the evening, she returns to watch the sunset. Love can have shadows. Love is light. And dark. She takes a sip of the wine, hoping it will brace her for the night. It is bold with subtle hints of something more. Both the wine, and love. Sometimes a means to an end. Other times the end of all means. Relationships leave shadows behind. Hers are lived out publicly. Her hopes fade for someone who will see her; know her for who she is. All the light. All the shadows. The smile lines and the passion burning within. Not a prince, simply a person. JJ closes her eyes, inviting a dream into her shadows. Daring dreams and shadows to become friends. “That is possible, isn’t it?” she whispers to the back of her eyelids.
Shadows need outside forces in order to move, to set them in motion. Otherwise, they simply are there, absent light, helpless as to what form they take. Can she reshape her shadows, she wonders as she opens her eyes again to the colors of the retreating sun. The ache of hope. Hope for children. Hope for love. Hope to be nurtured. The ache of children. The ache of love. The ache of nurture. Is pain the shadow of hope, she lets the thought pass through.
Secrets become shadows. JJ leans her chin onto her hands. Are secrets words or feelings or unhealed scars? She has her share of scars. She tries to keep them secret. JJ pulls her phone from her pocket. While sliding her finger across the glass, she accidentally starts a music app. The voices of the Bee Gees fill the space around her:
Talk in everlasting words/And dedicate them all to me
And I will give you all my life/I’m here if you should call to me
You think that I don’t even mean/A single word I say
It’s only words and words are all I have/To take your heart away.
She stands to go. A movement at water’s edge catches her attention. It is a shadow. JJ squints hard against the dying light. She recognizes the form and has a moment of dread. Finally, she opens her arms. The shadow slowly advances. She knows this shape, this form. Her mother. JJ slowly embraces this shadow, and with tears, gives her the most tender kiss before the light is gone.
Words are magic and writers are wizards.
“Words” 1968, Gibb, Universal Music
