Simone Weil 5

A rock in our path. She carries a lump in her throat. I suggest she name it, talk to it, make friends with it. The lump is scary, as if she dreamed what came true, in reverse order of myth. The lump does more than denote discomfort, it is what takes the place of nothing, which is calm abiding. She never differentiates the lump, never gives it fractals or a neighborhood; it is indistinguishable from any shape that doesn't fit. There are things to worry over: workplace, daughter, what was and will be. But now there is the lump. She worries over, not inside or under it. I see her hover, like a parasailor from her umbilical. Beneath her, a tiny boat skitters, honoring no direction except back and forth. Be forward looking, we're told. It's a way to frame an ideology as correct. Think of the lump as what holds us back, gives us pause not to pander but to rest.