These Walls

I met the morning with relief. My things are heaped under plastic and the walls are now various shades of yellow, one a little too close to the mustard of fast food. I have learned something about paint shop claims as to the authenticity of mix-to-order. And yet, nothing can cancel out the length of the sun's rays, barely deflected by the odd blue or still pink cloud; the sun, making prisms on the walls now exposed.
Yesterday I helped my painter. I peeled and sanded down the poor old windows and became maybe too aware at how much dust constitutes things we consider solid. Since I did not know that quite in this way before, there was a brief moment of sadness as I compared my blissful ignorance from my life up to yesterday. But how is it possible not to understand the upkeep of the very walls of one's material existence? Also, the painter seemed unamused at the number of books I have: this spoke to me of the relativity of knowledge. He possibly does not understand what I do.
What is book learning? One more way of knowing, a bridge to far more information than that held by the people making up the walls of one's material existence. The answer to curiosity and the friendships that space and time coordinates may deny.
At one point yesterday, I was almost completely covered in dust which, by the way, is everywhere, even on this computer. While I do not dread being dirty and have been known to revel in it when occasion calls, nobody enjoys breathing the dust that begins to burn at the skin. I have inherited paper-thin, delicate hands. Oddly, the discomfort of digits reminded me that now is the time to become the person I've always wanted to become. Peeling off whatever layers.
All I want to be left with at the end of this life is vital peace of mind, endurance, the ability to see beauty in whatever I'm given. That kind of thing. But character building does not happen as one lazes about at the Jardin Exotique in Monaco. I feel that when life circumstances change, I must learn to love that which looks like it is trying to deplete me. If I could learn that, I would become one of the richest people in the world, with or without Monaco.
Perhaps I had expected the newness and challenges to stop because I'd "made it through a lot." But just like the Iliad begins (in Greek) with the word "wrath" - μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ - as in "sing of the wrath, O goddess," I would begin my poem with the word "beauty," the attention to which does not deplete like fury or similar lesser emotions which are best released soon after being felt, not like the dear books worth holding on to, which challenge the dust in our bones to become something more.

Magazine.