Mother Paloma's Four Walls

Allow me to paint you a picture. Place yourself in my mind. Give me 10 mins. Let these words

on a page sit in your heart. Welcome to my most vividly stubborn memory.

The gray stone path is cold. The wooden door sits precariously in its frame. The floor is

carpeted with an old red rug that looks like it would smell like cigarette smoke. With only one

small window and perhaps five feet in each direction, you stand in the center of this mysterious

room.

Four walls, the most beautiful memory of my life is housed in four stone walls.

You are disinterested. Your heart is colder than the stone walls. For an unknown reason,

your mind frantically searches for an escape. This tight room is filled with 20 souls, but there

isn’t enough room for every soul. You, by chance, sit beside a square hole in the stone, covered

by large wooden doors.

A black latch created solely to keep these large wooden doors closed, guards the mystery of

Beauty behind it. When the black latch is lifted a window into another room is revealed.

However, this window is covered by a black grate with holes just wide enough to fit three fingers

through.

A conversion. Why here, why this small room, why can one singular moment change the future?

You see a figure ascend from the darkness of the neighboring room. With angelic

elegance, she gently pulls her seat, sits, and then through that three-finger wide gap, you see it.

You for the first time see Beauty.

An ocean, a dog, and a sunset are beautiful. But this moment is different—

You can feel that. As your eyes pass through that black grate, time comes to a sheering

halt. The souls in the room vanish. All of sudden you are alone and the room grows darker

behind you; but ahead there is nothing brighter: eyelashes, an eyebrow, and an eye. An eye,

framed by a black grate, is your fixation. Your disinterested, icy, frozen, petrified soul feels,

maybe for the first time. The bright light that pierces the darkness, melts the frost that trapped

your soul daily.

The mystery begins to show itself. Like a white silk curtain covering a beautiful landscape.

Your tunnel vision breaks, just long enough, for your eye to linger down, down, down to

a Mona Lisa smile. Rosy red lips, crooked teeth, and a black grate frame. Your eyes are glued to

something more than the lips; a smile. A smile that is forever imprinted on your mind. A gentle

smile, that warms your heart. A peaceful smile, that somehow is overly hospitable. An interested

smile, that somehow whispers—You are loved—.

It’s nothing, it's teeth and lips. Doubts strike most when you're called to listen.

You listen. Your eyes are out of your control. You feel nothing but wonder, a wonder that

begs your attention. You try to see past the grate. Your mind pleads with you to walk into the

other room, to make sense of the mystery. Yet your eyes are at peace. The grate obstructing your

view of Beauty doesn’t seem to bother your eyes.

Time creeps back in.

Then the lips move, and the eyes blink. Your ears anticipate a choir of angels to sing.

Peace, tranquility, joy— they speak as one. Your disinterested soul wakes Never more attentive,

you latch onto every word, every letter. The fleeting voice that blesses your ears flows freely.

You try to trap each word in your memory.

A voice is Beauty. A destructive voice.

As the voice speaks your native tongue the four stone walls crack. They crumble, but

your attention does not falter. You hear them fall yet your eye remains between the three finger

gaps. Shifting your weight, breaking your neck to see that smile, to see that shining eye. The sun

hits your strained neck. The walls are nearly gone. The peaceful voice triumphantly points your

eye to —

An other. The voice is pointing. Beauty is pointing.

Clarity enters your heart. You see it, your heart suddenly sees it—Joy.

Not happiness. Joy, maybe for the first time, Joy.

Your heart aches. Choked you hold back tears. As if your heart is trying to speak back,

you are longing. Longing for the Joy to remain for a while. Like a baby, you have discovered

something so basic, yet something so new.

Where has she been? Why has she been hiding behind this grate all my life? Why doesn’t she

reveal her mystery to others? She is selfish to conceal her Beauty behind a grate.

A voice whispers—Beauty has no Bounds

As I leave those four walls, leave that woman hidden behind a grate atop some mountain

in Spain, I realize I likely will never see her again. She has left me with a souvenir: the mystery

of Beauty lingering on my mind. That glimpse has changed something in me. My heart has been

flooded. My disinterested, cold, frosted-over soul has been converted into a lover.

That black grate housed in four walls melts. The black iron, as if on fire, melts before my eyes.

The black liquid iron spills on the floor leaving a hot-metallic smell.

Destructive Joy has melted my grate, has broken my walls. My stubborn eyes have been

open. That day within those four walls, after knowing her for 9 months I met her. This was the

day I saw her, even while being 4,011 miles away, I saw my love for the first time.

The woman in Spain has given me the eyes to see her. Her green eyes house the

unexplored galaxies. Her addictive eyes shine brighter than any star. I see now. I see housed

within her eyes that same mystery I saw behind that black grate. This mystery is hidden behind

her natural rosey glossed lips. Her lips that brand a breathtaking smile eternally onto my heart,

whisper the mystery in my ear. The mystery of Beauty’s finger.

Within those four walls, my eyes were pried open. The woman behind the grate with her

gentle voice woke me up, pointing to the Beauty right in front of me as I write.

My love,

As I look at your blessed complexion you become my most desired memory. Time stops, as I

memorize each beautiful feature. Each feature points to an Other. By holding Peace, Joy, Love,

Goodness, and Beauty in your heart, you point. Your beauty points. I feel insane. I am insane. I

am a mad man madly in love. I am in love with your green eyes that listen, your rosey lips that

speak peace, your gentle hands that console, your dimples that make all worries fly away, your

soft skin that envelopes a soul; in love with your soul that points to God.