Invisible

As a child I craved invisibility and pursued it at every opportunity, heading off into the trees and rocks whenever I could. There was a special place on a wooded hill not far from my parents' house where a great white pine and an old oak grew in a deep embrace, and that magical spot was everything that my traumatic home life was not - it was peaceful, enfolding and blissfully quiet, and I was invisible there - I was held in the loving arms of the trees and the greenwood.

When I learned to read at the age of three years or so, books became another refuge, and I often curled up in a deep window well behind the draperies with a book, reading with desperately focused intention and doing my best to be invisible, whatever was going on in the world beyond the curtains. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it did not.

In my middling years, there was no time to entertain thoughts of invisibility, and I put the idea away for another time, cleaving happily instead to travel, marriage, motherhood and a career of sorts. Perhaps I had less need for invisibility in those middling years, as I created homes of my own and evolved into other roles.

Now, as a middle aged (or perhaps elderly) female, I have discovered to my delight that I am oftentimes invisible in the great wide world (as are most older people, particularly women), and it is amusing to learn that the state which evaded me at almost every turn in my youth has been gifted to me in the fullness of time. Having said that, the best form of invisibility of all in my book (pardon the pun) is that splendid rainbow cloak of invisibility, transparency and "oneness" which manifests when one is out among the trees (or under a full moon) and behind a camera.

Books (of course) are still a great love, and as long as I have hands with which to hold them and eyes with which to read, they will remain a great pleasure and a passion. Within a good book, one may also become invisible.