I came across this lovely piece of creative writing that I did in Ecuador. A whimsical beginning to a larger tale, loosely based on my own life…
On the speck of infinity and twirling through space, a vibrant orange sun lifted out of the tropical mountains and high into the sky. Serena mirrored its busy fire as she moved through the property alchemizing its tone the best she could.
She was anticipating the needs of royalty as she prepared for her God Mother’s arrival. The Queen of Hearts was arriving soon and was going to need Serena’s full attention. So she focused on her task and moved like a beam clearing each room with the sweet smoke of palo santo.
She wasn’t quite satisfied with her work but she was feeling a bit run down these days and took a break from the cleaning. She’d be so full of love in her God Mother’s presence anyway that she’d fill in the gap of a not quite perfect scene by holding space with her internal glow. For now, it was time to pick Selma up from the airport!
Serena buzzed around the spacious white terminal, watching waves of people filter out from the glass border of then and now. When Selma appeared, time stopped. Once their eyes locked in on the other’s, they paused into that space between inhale and exhale, between sleeping and waking. The terminal was silent for just that one moment, before it all rushed back in like a fresh breath of mountain air. Damn, they were stoked to see each other!
On the ride back to the La Esperanza, a tiny retreat center on the coast that Serena had opened just five months before, she filled Selma in on details of the land she now inhabited. Selma smiled along, amused by her sweet God Daughter’s boundless adventures.
The girl carried on excitedly about this and that… some magical vortex, newfound superpowers… retreat yogis validating her gifts, a new understanding about the chakras and the Bible… She even boldly said something about being Persephone reincarnate…
Serena could be intense at times. Her brain moved faster than her lips, important details would slip and very few people could keep up with her chatter. Most of it was a bit out there, but she was so endearing they’d listen anyway and even the tiny bits they gleaned from her would leave their own heads spinning until finally settling into a new point of view.
After a long car ride filled with intriguing but overwhelming talk, Selma needed a rest and settled into her room. This girl is really something else, she thought to herself… She’s wildfire changing up the scene wherever she blazes and blazing wherever she wants. Serena changed lives like most people changed clothes, her own life and those who she pulled near.
She had lived in Alaskan log cabins, Midwestern cornfields, big city boxes in both high rises and basements, and now she had landed an 8-room modest hotel and yoga studio on the rich coast of Ecuador. She had nothing, yet everything. This was as close as she’d come to fully realizing what she knew she had in her.
Selma didn’t fully know her power either, but she was beginning to sense it. When Serena was born, she had gone to visit the girl in Virginia where her sister had shacked up with a handsome but scared young man she’d met in Boot Camp. Their one bedroom home was filled with immigrants, 7 Sicillains, 3 Germans, and now a baby girl blend of the two. Everyone came to be with this divine child. Everyone was in love with her.
As Selma thought back, she melted at a particularly tender moment. Her niece had been crying, surely worn out by the attention, when Selma picked her up and took her for a stroll around the complex. The tears subsided as they gazed into each other’s eyes. She remembered saying to the girl, “May you find everything you want in life and may you enjoy the journey. May your life be extraordinary.” Baby girl was cooing and smiling with a sweet twinkle in her eye. A potent spell had been cast.
Since then, she had witnessed Serena morph from humble servant to high roller, from innocent maiden to soldier, running frantically in the rat race then drifting to the tropics toward sea goddess enchantments, each change happening in a flash.
Selma surveyed the room at La Esperanza. It was nice enough, but she thought Serena could do better. La Esperanza was Serena’s latest manifestation and certainly the grandest, but something was still missing. It wasn’t obvious but there was a quality to the air that whispered a soft sadness.
Droves of humans had passed through the property in recent months, most of them leaving their retreats inspired and refreshed, lit up, not by La Esperanza, but by Serena’s warm glow. They were so blissed out with yoga, prana, novelty, and possibility when they left that they couldn’t tell the difference. La Esperanza would be the place they recalled and La Esperanza would whisper back. But there were a few people around who sensed something deeper at play and Selma was one of them. She was the Queen of Hearts and she could see that Serena’s heart was not fully present in this place…