I propose that softness is an emotion. Think about it…
Think about when you get home at 5.27 pm on a cold April day, and you’re the only one at home. Your sitting room is slightly dark from the overcast clouds outside, but there’s a faint glimmer filtering in. You make yourself a cup of tea, and the steam coming from the cup, mingles with the light peeking through the gaps in your curtains. That feeling you get, when you just sit, and watch. You don’t switch on the light, you don’t put on the TV. You just marvel at the last rays of the sun. Softness.
Think about when your niece/nephew/son/daughter has gotten ready for bedtime. They’re in those cute little onesies, and when they come out, all neat and tidy. You watch them, the calmest they’ve been in the day. They don’t want to run around, or play with their toys. They just lie down, their head on your belly, their little hands in yours. Sleep starts weighing on their eyes slowly, silently. You look at them, and maybe kiss their forehead or gently touch their cheek and they have that baby smell. You know that smell. The one of newness and cuteness… and softness.
Think about the lyrics from La Vie En Rose… “and when you speak angels sing from above, everyday words seem to turn into love songs…” Being asked if you’ve eaten, or what you think about a light fixture, becomes so romantic, you’d never think it could be possible. But it is. You’re both on the sofa, watching TV. Your legs are entwined. You know you can reach out whenever you like. You look over, and your heart gets filled with softness.
Think about when your family gets together. That point in the night when nostalgia takes over. Stories about the contents of your grandmother’s purse – one sock, a medicine for every ailment, a pen, pruning shears for when she’d see a pretty flower, and a banana in case she got hungry. The way she’d mix everyone’s names. The way she could spend the whole day in softness with the birds and the flowers.
Think about a day with your best friend. Where neither food, nor Netflix can interrupt your important conversation about why you’ve come out of your tumblr phase. From morning to evening, you’ve had one conversation about everything. From doughnuts, to death, to Dora the Explorer. It’s time to go home and you know the next time you see her will be months later, but she’ll still be filled with the same softness you always rely on through every stage of your life.
So, you see, softness is an emotion. Maybe it falls within a spectrum of a larger emotion like happiness, or love, or both. But you feel it every day. It’s what lies in the beginning, middle, and end of everything. Every phase of your life is highlighted by moments of softness. You’re always looking for it, and find it at the most unexpected time. After being soaked in the rain and shouted at by your mum, after throwing a tantrum and being soothed by your brother, right in the middle of an aisle in Nakumatt with the love of your life, right when you look around and see everyone you love together.
It’ll give you strength, and make you weak. It’ll make you happy, it’ll make you sad. Maybe softness is the core of your life, maybe it’s the shell.
I’ve been drowning in the softness of life for as long as I can remember. Have you?
