Notes on new beginnings

My entire life changed overnight: I’d lost my job, my son left for college across the country, my husband filed for divorce. I needed a quiet place to think. I’d rented the house for a month. It stood in the center of a tree farm. There were a total of 53 acres surrounding the cabin, including three separate ponds. I was going to be Thoreau. I’d keep a journal and walk and cogitate and figure out how to create a new life from the old pieces.

The single bedroom took up the upper story. I unpacked hanging my things in the closet. There was also an antique armoire, with full mirrored door. I found the first note inside, along with a collection of vintage dresses.

“Put on a different costume and be a different character from a different story for a day.”

The clothing seemed to be in my size. I would go through them after a bath, I found the thought of being someone else for a while enticing.

Dressed in a long flowy skirt, a wide belt, a delicately crocheted sweater, I wandered downstairs, made tea, and decided to curl up in the window seat and just be in the moment. I found the second note affixed to the window, and a faceted glass cabochon on a leather cord.
“If you need a different perspective, look through this.”

I was starting to feel a little like Alice.

Later that first night, I found kindling in the fireplace, matches, and another note:
“If you need a spark. If you need to start a fire under someone. If you feel like you want to burn the world down.”

I needed the spark, I needed to start a fire under myself. My world had already burned down. I started collecting the notes and put them in a journal, examining my feelings. The next day, walking through the trees in knee breeches and boots with a poet shirt, I came upon several empty picture frames hanging from tree limbs. Another note:
“Stop and take a look if you need to reframe things, get a new frame of mind”

I spent a good couple of hours looking through the various frames, full of life and colors of the natural setting.

In the library, there were books and puzzles. A dish of random puzzle pieces and another note:
“Here’s a piece of the puzzle. You might not know what piece or which puzzle. But you’ve found one.”

On the desk a vase of various feathers, another note:
“Take one if you need your fancy tickled”

I began to wonder if there were magic elves writing clever notes to find while I was sleeping, because I could swear that there would be a new note, a new wonder, each day when I had been in that same room, that same place the day before. The pennies on the kitchen counter with the note:    
“So you can always add your 2 cents!”

I cooked good meals for myself, I walked every day, I dropped a few pounds, I slept. I delighted in the notes I found and the discoveries I made about myself. At the end of the month, as I prepared to take my leave, I tried to lock up. The key did not fit in the lock. Looking closer, I realized it wasn’t the key I’d been using at all. I wasn’t sure where it had come from. But here was another note:
“A Key, well because, it is Key. How can you unlock doors without one?”

I stepped into my new life.

— Lkai