Revisiting the Retreat

This is the writing I did in response to the art card prompt from the retreat. I don't feel compelled to continue with the card and piece of writing I did. I am including here, a slightly revised version of what I wrote that day. I was instead, drawn back to the "She remembers" poem I wrote as we read our photographs and wrote in 3rd person about ourselves or the other "characters"in the photos.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885-6 John Singer Sargent 1856

They were like little blossom fairies fallen from the flowered trees, prancing through the garden in nightgowns adorned in ruffles that matched the falling blooms. Just before bed they collected lightning bugs in glass honey jars, illuminating their faces from below one brighter than the other. It is difficult living in the shadow of everything she was- or wasn't. She wondered if her little bug shared her pain, or just basked in the glow of her own light unaware there was even a shadow.

***

She Remembers

She remembers the feeling of arrival

She remembers this time she wasn't the youngest in the room

She remembers they could actually afford the hotel

She remembers how impressed people seemed to be she had risen 

so high on the ladder at such a young age

that at 30 she was in her best physical condition, 

despite having a young child

She remembers how grown up she felt attending the wedding of her young protege

She remembers the feelings of suspicion their love wouldn't last, 

and finding out a few years later she was right

She remembers the show- not only of the marriage 

but of the packaged consumerism of a Disney wedding

that she knew marriage and relationships and life

were not made up of fairy tales

She remembers the feeling of slipping into a twelve dollar dress 

and making it look like a million bucks

that her husband couldn't keep his hands off her

and he whispered in her ear all night about going back to the room

She remembers that night in the hotel

She remembers that even though she doesn't feel like a million bucks now

he still touches her the same way he did then  

that husbands aren't knights and wives aren't princesses

and love isn't a fairytale

She remembers...