Shawls and Blankets!

     It's dark outside and silence breaks through the night. I lay there in my bed on a cold winter night. I can't sleep and I look outside my bedroom window. My mind rambles on, and it seems to be working non-stop. Like a merry-go-round at the mall, with kids riding around in a circle, my mind is doing the same, but with many thoughts of the day's life events, spinning around and around. The window is a big and tall squared glass with equally divided views, separated by 4 wood panels. After a few hours of desperate long turns and tosses to try to go to sleep, the window no longer seems to be just 1 window, but many. Every time I look at each corner of the window I come across a different image, I see a new face, I can hear a new voice, and I can feel time going by too slow, trying to keep the night silent free, not to awake any human being sleeping on the other side. My body feels tired, asleep, wrapped around in soft and warm blankets, but my mind won't let it go, as it doesn't want to miss anything that is going on outside in the long night, for it seems to be flying really fast inside a slow movement globe called time. I just want to close my eyes, sleep the night away, forget about everything else, good and bad that happened during the day. It was a long day, and the night is promising to be as long, as time is not moving, except for everything inside. The window curtain is not moving either, not as much as it does in the summertime, when the breeze makes it flow to the left side and to the right side. In the summer, the night is not as still, not as quiet, not as dark. The window is just one window, as it is up and opened, and the many neat equally divided views become just 1. In the summer the mind seems to be more carefree like the soft breeze the window lets in, listening to the voices neighbors soundly still make so late at night, and it goes to sleep at the same time the body does. Almost like telling us that it prefers the winter quiet night, to wonder more and live in glory after the day is over, and as soon as the night approaches us. The mind prefers to leave the body behind on a cold night, resting all its fatigue and saving its inner energy for the following day. It finally leaves the body and travels through the glass window in a time flash and follows that new image, the new face, the voice that keeps calling, and explores the outside, looking for anything the universe may be bringing upon us to be revealed when the time is right. Outside, the night is not as dark, not as cold, not as silent, as it appears from the inside. Life to the mind seems to be moving freely, as it is time for it to create and re-create new events for the following day, so the body can go ahead and work its wonderful ways. Mind and body work parallel and like my bedroom window, they are equally divided and partners in life, and almost in similar synchronization.

     An old lady appears outside my bedroom window, all dressed up in black, wearing simple clothes, covered with a long black shawl, whose face looks very familiar to me. She walks very slow but somehow I have a hard time reaching her, touching her and holding on to her. I feel frozen in time, as if the glass window that separates us, is the distance in time stopping us from encountering one another. Even if appearing to be so close, it is yet so far, as there seems to be a barrier, a time capsule somewhere in between us. One minute there is snow outside my window, another minute there is no snow. One minute I can clearly see her face looking at me, and hear her voice saying it all will be just fine. Another moment, the window is covered with snow, and I can't see one thing outside. Just a few minutes before I thought my window had many corner views, and now it has just 1. I also thought that my body was resting inside some soft winter blankets, and that my mind was outside looking for the images the window had just drawn and brought alive to my curious and sleepy eyes. But now it feels that I am somewhere in between, fighting to get both body and mind back to be reconnected with my soul! Where am I, what am I doing and why?
Who is the lady with the black shawl, and why is she outside my bedroom window? She walks alone in the dark, in her own world it seems, not mine. And at times with other women and children, up and down and in circles, as if they are all linked together and at the end becoming just 1. What is she trying to tell me and why? Why can't I leave my world, and go out there to find out? I feel that  I can hear her whispering voice, and telling me once again that all will be just fine. Not to have any worries, not to be scared, but instead to be happy and to always believe in my own dreams. They dress in my Grandmother's provincial way, as if they were from the same era, living the same journey with the same purpose in life. They are women who lived with the same simplicity, velocity, dignity and in the same obscurity. They suffered alone, living along their own shadow, shining away from the bright light, that could have brought them so many other chances and opportunities, which they never had. I feel they are showing me a sign through their black shawls that it's up to me to wear one just like they did, or not to and let it fly away. Why is my curious mind still outside that bedroom window, not wanting to come back in the house, my rested body sleeping comfortably in my bed covered with winter blankets, and my inquisitive soul ready to be reconnected with them all, still looking through the glass of a now snow covered window with nobody outside, but cars traveling by, making loud noise and yes in the 21st century. It is 1997, at my new home, full of fear and pride, about to embrace a new life in a new winter wonder land.
     It feels that I have been awake all night. Don't they know that I have to go back to work in the morning and need my so needed rest? Suddenly, the bright daylight shines in through my bedroom window, replacing the darkness of the night, creating this amazing feeling of awakening to a day of new discoveries, new energy, new  enlightenment. I realize that it is a cold and snowy winter day, that somehow feels warm to me. I also realize the alarm clock didn't off, as it is Saturday and I don't have to go to work at all. Life is good I say to myself! And I ask "What was that all about?". Only in dreams the body, soul and mind get disconnected alive; chances and opportunities are called shawls and blankets; and now I wonder what's the meaning of those head scarves they all wore so proudly? It possibly couldn't be to cover their shame, as they had no shame to worry about. Perhaps to protect them from the evil, as their innocence and fear was greater than anyone could ever imagine. They were wonderful people, who today are our angels who use the light of the night, and through our dreams, to tell us to cross that barrier so called distance and reach high! So next time you and your children go to bed, look outside your bedroom window, you may see your angel of the night during that night's dream. And if you ever feel there is something in between you and your dreams at anytime, day or night, oh for Heaven's sake, just break that window! ♥

My Grandma, my Inspiration to this and many other stories I have written. Not sure if she ever wore a black shawl, but she definitely covered me with many warm blankets as a child. This story was written based on a true dream I had in 1997, when I purchased my first home, but only written today Sunday March 27, for the first time ever! It has been 14 years now, and maybe time for another dream! She is my angel!♥

The black shawl has now color for today's modern woman,
with a total different meaning and new dimension..