What is it shaped as?
The perfume bottle hasn’t changed over the decades of its existence.
Still the same heart bottle. Still the same label.
Still the same texture of its light blue cap.
Still the same strong, sweet Vanilla scent.
Vanilla is not my favorite perfume note.
Mom loved it though.
Probably, in part, because she wanted to be sweet; she wanted to be viewed as a sweet person.
She wanted to have a sweet life.
Reality was more painful, sour, and complicated than her heart-shaped, Vanilla wishes.
I never saw Mom dance, let alone waltz.
And my dancing steps, despite taking ballroom and theatre dance/movement classes?
Well..
Mom died late last year.
I am starting to realize that reality. Beyond knowing logic. Feeling and memories are now popping up more.
Because I’m in a safer place for them to do just that?
Because that is my grief process?
Because The Most High wants me to walk- or waltz out- certain things?
Grief.
Nothing new under the sun.
When, not if, each of us experiences it, however many times we experience it.
How sunny, cliché, Pollyanna, trite, despairing, and “grief-stricken” should I be?
I don’t know.
I don’t know what this is supposed to look like.
I can, however, look at that bottle of perfume.
Yes, I have a bottle of it on my dresser.
Blue Waltz.
“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. LORD my God, I will praise you forever.”
Psalm 30:11-12
I know the perfume does not turn mourning into dancing.
It’s not supposed to.
That’s part of His choreography.
I don’t know if or how my feet are resting on top of His, as He and I are moving through this time of my life.
