On Sunday Afternoon, a Remark from Last Week Lingered

On Sunday afternoon, while folding laundry, my hands stopped. I had suddenly remembered what a colleague said, smiling, in the hallway after last week's meeting. "You're always this quiet, aren't you?" I don't think there was any ill will in it. That person probably doesn't even remember saying it. That day I laughed it off with "Yeah, kind of," and went back to my seat hoping the laugh hadn't looked awkward.

But I carried those words around all week. They popped up in the shower, on the bus, before I fell asleep. Telling myself it was nothing didn't help. Feeling pathetic again for dwelling so long on nothing, I felt as if I were laying one more hurt on top of the hurt. Being quiet is a self I have cultivated for a long time, and that one remark seemed to have turned it into a flaw.

I sat for a long while with the towel I'd been folding in my lap. From outside came the occasional sound of children kicking a ball, and the afternoon light through the curtain lay long on the floor. I poured a cup of barley tea and wrapped both hands around the cup. It was warm. I watched the steam rising from the cup slowly loosen in the sunlight.

The hand that wraps

I opened still().

He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3 (WEB)

My eyes stopped at "binds up". I didn't read it as a promise that I would be healed. The verse doesn't say when or how that would happen. What stayed with me was only the picture of a hand that covers a wound. Even if I can't get rid of the hurt quickly, someone is beside me wrapping it. I didn't want to blame the colleague who said it. Nor did I want to conclude that I'm an oversensitive person. Just admitting, "It still hurts," let me breathe a little. Only then did I notice that my shoulders had been raised all week from pretending to be fine.

I drank the barley tea slowly to the end. I finished folding the rest of the laundry too. I folded the towels in three, matching the corners. I decided not to think that I had to sort out that remark today. I figured that if I ran into that person on Monday, I could simply say hello. I decided to think about Monday on Monday. The sound of putting the towels in the drawer and closing it was strangely clear today. The sound of the ball being kicked outside had grown distant by now. I plan to warm up some soup for dinner.

Today's breath — With both hands around a warm cup, breathe out slowly once.