Vacancy

Sorry for the vacancy @ Living Ava’s Way, I have had a lull in my writing heart. I guess you could say a vacancy of words. Vacancy used to remind me of travel, especially impromptu summer road trips. The looming question, will there be a vacancy at the hotel, motel, campground? Oh, the excitement of someplace new. Now it reminds me of my heart because there is a vacancy that can’t be filled. There are a lot of vacant stares too as my mind tries to focus on what is life, but keeps wondering about the afterlife and the past.

“Your memory feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds it’s way back to you.” 
― Ranata Suzuki

A grieving heart is like an empty cabin in the woods that no one comes to visit anymore. It used to be bustling spring, summer, and fall with vacationers, and even hunters in the winter. Now it barely stands, the door hangs on one hinge, the windows are broken, holes in the roof, the side wall is caving in due to rotted footings.

You want to enter this place once full of fun and excitement, but fear and sadness of what once was holds you back. Will the floor that used to be strong, hold you or will it turn to dust as you step upon it? Will the memories these walls once held blow away in the breeze as you step through the door?

As you peek through the broken window you see the remnants left behind, odds and ends no longer wanted, an old bed, a broken table, a rusty pan. A rug pushed up against the wall, maybe washed against the wall from a hard rain. What caused the permanent vacancy, why the abandonment of a place so peaceful?

A broken heart hurts, but an empty heart is like the cabin in the woods. If you stop going to the cabin and taking care of it eventually it will end up vacant. It is work to patch the holes, shake off the dust, repair the hinges, shore up the structure, but what is really important is filling the inside with love, kindness, compassion.

“The space within becomes the reality of the building.” – Frank Lloyd Wright