Monthly Archives: October 2021

The Rest of the Story

A story about a visit to Antarctica by Gael Mueller.

gizzylaw's avatarTalkin' to Myself

(For some unknown, unknowable reason, I stopped writing in June. Just stopped. Didn’t think about it. Didn’t worry about it. Whatever makes me write, stopped.

Then a few days ago, that part of my brain started working again. Just did.

So I looked back at what I had been writing about and realized—I didn’t finish the story of Antarctica. So here is–The Rest of the Story.)

The entire trip to Antarctica had given me an emotional high. I was were, for most of my adult life, I had wanted to be. I was on an ocean that few had the privilege to see. I was witnessing a landscape that was terrifyingly beautiful. I was acutely aware of the dangers that surrounded me as I floated on a small rubber boat among penguins and icebergs, whales and mountains.

Zodiak trips

The cold wind on my face, the sun…

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A brain, a heart, and courage

You must’ve been a big man in the schoolyard.

Yes- that is what I think when I watch you with others.

Did you lie in wait for that puny kid who wouldn’t fight back-
who perhaps thought that this was how their life was supposed to be;
who made up stories as to why they came home cut or bruised,
or thought that maybe they really were Ugly, Stupid, Fat?

And I wonder, now, what friends you have,
suspecting that they are of the dime-a-dozen gang,
and how many gatherings you go to and push- push with your loudness.

But you see-
some of us who were moulded in quietness and shame
have kept diaries, physical or spiritual,
speaking at first to some imagined angel who would cry for us,
then draw a sword of flame.

And you see-
some of us have found each other. Yes.

And some of us are Writers.
Something you will never be.

And we have blossomed with a quiet courage,
not of vengeance, but of strength.

So, have a care-
lest you become the one who stands away,
wishing that recess would end.

***

Image: Aleutie/Thinkstock