Travelling through a button hole.

I love to sew and as I tack on a button I suddenly have this urge of passing through the buttonhole..It is an insistent momentous impulse. I give in.

I see myself reducing my expanse and shrinking to get my head into the hole — a dark unknown .. exciting, pulsating, terrifying! I feel a change of realm and rhythm. I can’t breathe. The tightness hits my chest and nose. I push on. It is my will against the walls that provoke and challenge. Time pauses, I slacken and now seem to get my bearings- I can see again! The confines seem to change their stance- they pretend to embrace me, the crevices and nobs on the surface make smiley faces at me and I slowly relent. I start to move forward in a slow and careful crawl, my knees and elbows both hurt — the surface is not cordial.. it emphasises its own importance by roughing me up a bit. I understand. I am the one that took it on in the first place, so I ignore the arrogance.

I am easing into the new landscape, my body turning tubular like the tunnel. I am fitting!! I expand a little, and shrug myself into a snug.. I move on breathing easier, the enclosure becoming a space more familiar.. it is no more a mean world. I pretend that it holds me and fantasise — this space is an extension of me..my body, my soul. Amazing, how much a slave of habit we are… the darkness is now my habit!

The light ahead seems closer as I crawl at a steady pace. The bumps and constrictions bother me but without anxiety, more like irritants..something I have to cross over. I pause. I have a moment in my head now and I question this journey. Why have I undertaken this route? Is it a test of my endurance, a confrontation of my fears. Is it a challenge to the darkness within which competes with the darkness without … I wonder at this wonder! I indulge my deviousness for a moment and shut my eyes…and realise that the same very moment has also, with devious intent, extended itself into prolonged meditation. I fall into a repose.

The light hurts as I open my eyes again and I am forced to shut them . I am nearing the other end ..I feel a rush of exhilaration mixed with anxiety … suddenly I want to stop, retract, return..but there is no going back. I now reach the edge. My head pops out into a shock of light and sound, and a gush of air. I slither out completely. I am now in expanded reality. The universe takes over. My breath stabilises and I become myself again.I turn around to look back to where I came from..now a spec of darkness..so tiny, so insignificant…… I turn the fabric over and tie the knot and look at my handiwork. Not a bad piece of work by any standards….

Kamna Raj Aggarwalla

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