She saw broken things.
She saw the rundown houses of her neighborhood, all in desperate need of nails and fresh coats of paint. She saw the beat up cars traveling the streets, their dents and mismatched panels speaking of hard driven miles.
She saw the naked flesh of trees split open by ever more powerful storms. She saw the dead leaves of the fall massed in paper bags set for destruction. She saw the waves smashing against the impenetrable rocks on the coast.
She saw the cracks in the human heart, the thousand fault lines of lives lived to the limits of ability. She saw the tear-stained cheeks of loss. She saw the pain of this life hidden deep beneath the false brightness of tired eyes. She saw the hidden scars of old injuries.
She saw the shattered souls of those who had loved, been broken by that love and loved again. She knew they had no choice but to keep on.
She saw these breakages because she lived them. She was determined to experience life at its fullest and understood – from having seen – that it would involve the pain of continuous breaking.
She had broken hearts herself, snapped twigs, cut grass. She had broken egg shells. She had been in accidents. It was all part of living.
She recorded it all – brought it to life on the page – brought those pages to the world to let us know we were not alone. She understood the loneliness of breaking. She hoped her words might help ease some of our pain.
What was broken was beautiful if you looked at it in a different light – through a larger lens. She tried to bring that to the world – a small sense of wonder.
They say the effort was what broke her.
