Renaissance Market
The Renaissance Festival of my brain has dusty paths between market stalls with battered green awnings. There’s no historically-accurate costumed guests brightening up the venue with their gaiety. No merchants, no children entranced by jugglers, no double-fisting drumstick wielders can sneak in and delight me.
In a maze of loneliness, I find the stalls from which I buy the wares.
I step into the Be Kind shop. It’s grown over the years as I spent more and more energy there. The jars on the shelf are neatly labeled, 3 have a nice days, 7 bright smiles, 6 hold open the door. Crafted pieces on the counter are designed to fit with pieces from other shops before using. There’s a broom handle for deep cleaning jobs at parents’ homes that needs bristles from the Guilt tent on the outskirts of the arena, maybe it will be bound together with twine from Patience. Patience always feels like there was a supply shortage along the way and what lands here needs to be used sparingly.
At Commitment. I load up. I buy a collection of rings that spells Husband, bracelets for sons, hair clips for friends, dangly silver earrings for family. There are some temporary tattoos that I pick up for work. When I clamp them to my skin under a moist paper towel, they make me feel important, unless they are making me feel inadequate. Sometimes the towel is too wet or the pressure too much and the beautiful image makes a mess when it gets turned on itself. A wristwatch and a pocket watch are too tempting to choose between. I will buy them both and manage every second.
By the time I get to the aisles of self-care, my arms are laden with goods. Picking anything up here feels like betrayal. There’s no room for bath salts, or paint or books. There’s some peanut-butter fudge that tastes like memory which I stuff in my pocket. Yes, yes, it wasn’t my brightest idea but I’m no good in here, I tell you! Some people can come to a place like this and enjoy every item, every moment, every delicious morsel. I get hives and gooey pants.
The sun is setting. The fuses for strings of lights over the main stage have long since burnt out. I’ll go home with these choices that I made and wonder if tomorrow I’ll be different.
