The Story

She had never been held like this before.

So light, so tenderly, yet deeply secure. Breathless yet gulping the precious air. Warm, yet shivering. This was new in a way that made each cell of her body sing! She called out to the heavens to witness her joy! Yes- never before like this.

Oh some had tried.

There had been a little rough and tumble when she was quite young. Then there’d been a cozy, caring, almost careful. Even once held like a fragile jewel, to be examined at every angle. But there was no comparison to be made.

The strength flowing across her breast, the rushing in her ears.

She would never need another thing. Hunger nor thirst could penetrate such contentment.

Borne over waves of pleasure, what heights! What peace.

This was flying.

The Word

Eleutheromania (noun): A mania or frantic zeal for freedom

Look! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a wom- no wait, that’s defiantly a bird.

This one is so short that maybe I should file it with poems rather than stories. But as the chimes have ding-a-dong’ed this week, announcing a wind bringing warm weather into my neck of the woods, I couldn’t help but feel like an uncaged bird myself.

I am a different person come spring. I know I’m not alone in this. A joy that has hibernated through cold rains and yes, even beautiful snows, awakens to bloom in my chest and run down to my fingers and toes. There is nothing quite like being warm.

I joke to my friends and family that I was a flower in another life. That I wilt without sun and warmth. I even call those hard days (the ones with the anxiety or the migraines or the seasonal depression or like, the state of the world) gray days- because they are like a heavy cloud has settled between me and blue sky.

But spring is finally settling in. There are wrens and robins fighting over the bird feeder, singing their lungs out for seed. And no, the world’s problems are not any less, but at least there is a little sunshine.

Happy spring, and happy reading.

P.S. Isn’t this a great word? There are some real fascinating finds in the “mania”s. Would encourage diving into the “mania” word-family-rabbit-hole when you need a doom-scroll break.