When Worry Showed Up Again

It slithered in snakelike, the worry, and hissed in a sinister whisper, What if you said too much? Why can’t you just be quiet?  I felt its eyes measure my long, bare throat, felt its fangs against my skin. Doubt in my safety flooded in. But I did not speak back. Instead, on instinct, my body took me to the noon-bright pond to float like a leaf on my back. I felt the water lifting me. Felt the summer-warm kiss of sun. Listened to dragonflies moving the reeds as they landed and took off again. Listened to trees rustled by wind. The more present I was in my body, the less strangled by worry I felt. The more I could see how worry wasn’t everything, the easier I could breathe. Hours later, I marvel how the body, knew just what to do, an ancient wisdom moving through. Of course the snake didn’t disappear. I still hear its disturbing, insistent hiss: What if, it insinuates. What if, what if … But it’s harder now to believe the snake when I feel more aligned with what’s here. What’s here? The heart ever learning to open, to trust. The wonder of having a voice at all. The wondering what I am here to learn. Dozens of dragonflies. Reeds. A slender snake of worry. Trees. Sun. Pond. Wind. —Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer