The following is an excerpt from my new novella entitled, “Quietude” available on Amazon January 9, 2024.
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“The wound is the place where light enters you.”
When she was a very young girl, Rumi seldom left her mother’s side. Rumi simply called her, “Ma.” On one occasion in her early life, she was separated from Ma in the marketplace of Nazaré amongst the hordes of people trying to buy goods and provisions. For two hours, she searched for Ma while panic gripped her heart.
“Where could she have gone? Wonder if I never find her again?” Rumi wondered, torturing herself with her own thoughts.
The fear was palpable. She was so terrified she did the only thing she could think to do: she sat down on the ground and began sobbing. It was a fisherman who was spending the day in port who discovered her crying.
“What’s troubling you, little girl?”
“I can’t find my Ma,” she said through her tears.
“Well, let’s see if we can’t change that,” he said smiling.
Jules was the fisherman’s name.
It didn’t take long before Rumi was reunited with her mother. Her mother, who was also filled with fear when she couldn’t find Rumi, felt forever indebted to the fisherman. From that moment forward, Rumi never ventured out of Ma’s sight for fear that they would be forever separated. Wherever her mother was, Rumi was sure to be by her side.
Jules’ visits to the port town were infrequent, but when he did find himself in the small village a few times a year, he would find time for a clandestine meeting with Rumi’s mother. It wasn’t long before they became lovers. Rumi was none the wiser. She thought only that her mother had found a friend. Rumi was happy for Ma because she seemed happy when she was with the fisherman.
That is until, one day, Jules never returned. Her mother waited month after month, hoping that her lover would rejoin her. With each passing day, Ma became sadder and sadder. Rumi watched her mother each day, knowing deep in her heart that the fisherman would never return. Finally, she couldn’t take it witnessing her mother in pain anymore and she revealed what was in her heart—“You’re creating your own pain,” Rumi told Ma.
Ma was taken aback by Rumi’s remark.
“You won’t understand until you get older, honey,” Ma responded.
“I don’t need to get older to know that he’s not coming back,” Rumi replied, continuing, “Let him go. His life is on the ocean.”
Ma was hurt—hurt because of Rumi’s directness; even more hurt because deep within her heart she knew this was the truth.
The wound is the place where light enters you, Rumi noted to herself privately.
It was most likely in this moment that Rumi first began recording her thoughts in a little red book. When life presented a lesson to her, she notated it. She carried the book everywhere. In moments of silence, she read the notes over and over to allow them to seep into her consciousness, hoping never to forget the lessons. She got her best thoughts when she was silent, she mused. In silence, we can hear the Divine. She called her Little Red Book, Quietude.
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