Just Like That

It's been quite awhile since I have shared; this piece from a recent Writing Workshop, when birthed, nudged me to return.

 

     Sit, she said.

     The waves crashed at Kalihiwai, but I knew she didn’t like the wet. We settled under the Ironwoods, close enough to see, far enough to hear.

     Concentrate, she said.

     I closed my eyes and turned into my breath. I felt her rich brown gaze confirmed by my adolescent peeking.

     Focus, she said.

     I turned my inhale to the seascape and let my mind open.

     Breathe, she said.

     I slipped deeper into inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale, loss.

     There, she said.

     A clutching, a hitch, that twinge of unknown.

     I listened to her unresponsiveness.

     I followed the hitch, dropping into my belly and letting the blackness of being stretch open in my mind. The hitch quivered and spun.

     Like that, she said.

     I continued breathing, twinkling stars emerging in my mind, a place of returning, a future sorrow emerging.

    We are from the stars, she said.

     I inhaled my resistance and let it go. It was all going anyway, with or without me.

     Inhale and exhale.

     Inhale and exhale.

     Like that, she said.

     Like that?

     Just like that.

    When I opened my eyes, hers were closed, her wet nose sniffing the sunlight, her brown fur trimmed with sand.

     She shifted her gaze to the ocean, a master training a padawan - an eager student hoping to change the course.

    “C’mon, my girl.”

     She heaved her hips off the beach to standing, shaking her fur clean, wagging her tail submissively, and sizing me up with her wise gaze.

     “Kyla?” I asked.

     Turning, she deflected my question, shouldering past me to the car, expectantly awaiting her chariot ride home.

 

Dedicated to my Beloved Friend & Constant Companion,
Kyla, who transitioned 12-22-11