Sunflower - Chapter 37

I am a moonflower.

Burch steps to the side, avoiding a hole.

Is this not a most curious thing for me to be?

Has anyone ever heard of such a silly thing as a moonflower?

— I think not.

With my petals spread out wide, I bask in the light of the full moon.

It washes down over us like cascading water.

The moonlight paints Burch’s features with a softer, kinder tone than the harshly truthful sun does so like to do.

The sun is good, but it offers little consideration for our feelings.

The moon however, is softer. It is gentler.

We find ourselves on a meadow, most curious.

Usually, I would not bother thinking too much about meadows. After all, we have seen so many meadows in our days.

Some are wider. Some are flatter. Some are bumpier. Some have flowers. Some do not. Some have divots, full of standing water. Some do not.

— But they are all meadows, one and the same. Hardly worth noting anymore.

This makes me sad.

Ah.

I recall the first time that I saw a meadow.

How excited I was for a thing that I now hold to be trivial.

Burch steps around another hole.

Perhaps this is what growing up is?

— The act of being used to the incredible. So much so that it becomes dull.

How sad. Growing up is sad.

It makes me realize that the luckiest creatures we have met on our journey have all died young.

The baby rabbits that Burch had stolen from their hole.

The young child of the village, who struck her head against a rock.

The eggs of the sea-turtle.

All of these creatures died young and so they, barring the eggs at least, have only ever experienced a world of true wonder and nothing less.

Truly, the greatest kindness available is to kill all creatures before they can reach adulthood.

But I digress. The meadow.

It is full of holes.

This is a very unusual thing for a meadow to be. I would expect a meadow to be flat and green and lush.

But this one is simply… full of holes.

I turn to the side, looking down at the ground as Burch steps around another one.

The holes are deep. They reach down as perfectly cylindrical shafts into the world, moving towards its core. The soft glow of the moon does not even come close to illuminating their depths.

This is the downside of the moon.

Its light is soft and gentle, but so much so, that it lacks the severity that the sun brings with it.

There are secrets in the night that can never be exposed. These are things that would be plain and clear to see in the daytime.

In the daytime, we could see what lies at the bottom of these holes.

Burch navigates her way around another one.

They are not large, but they’re large enough that a person of her size would simply slide down its perfectly smooth interior, should she misstep.

Ah.

A mystery.

And this is why it is good to be a moonflower.

As a sunflower, I have grown old enough to lose much of life’s exotic wonder. I have seen and known so many things that they no longer surprise me.

But, as a moonflower, under the weaker light of the moon, the world is different.

Things are different.

My friend’s face, harsh and creased with sadness, is softer and has a hint of that youthful glimmer I used to know.

My petals, verdant, are not as marred and thick and frayed as they are in the sunlight. I, too, am gentler.

And the meadow, full of holes, finally, is a gentle thing too.

For there are only holes here now.

— Who knows what will come out of them, come the day?

Perhaps it is best we do not find out.

After all, I would like to not spoil the mystery.

It is one of the things that makes life worth living.

_______________________________________________

I am a moonflower.

But what does this mean?

Am I a different entity to when I am a sunflower?

Or am I the same being a core, simply with a new facade?

— A difficult question.

Burch has removed her clothes and bathes in the moonlight lit waters of a gentle stream.

She, too, has now changed her exterior.

And now, she too, acts differently.

Burch with clothes does not bath.

Burch without clothes, bathes.

Is it the clothes that make her not bathe?

Or is she simply bathing now, because she has no clothes?

— Could she not bathe with her clothes?

Perhaps.

But then they would be wet and burdensome.

Herein lies the lesson, I believe.

Sometimes, it is good to change your exterior, because it will change your interior in turn.

Change can sometimes start from the superficial and then become deeper set.

It does not always have to come from the inside.

By taking her clothes off, Burch has entered into the water.

This changes her hygiene, which in turn changes her mood and comfort.

— I myself do not care about her standards of hygiene either way. I believe that, as best friends, we are beyond such simple things.

But, by changing her mood and comfort, she allows a changing of her emotions to occur.

Her changing emotions will allow a changing of character.

All of these things came from the external acts of removing her clothes and entering the stream.

Could Burch have just decided to change her character without doing these things?

Perhaps.

But is it more likely to work this way?

I think so.

Just as Burch is changing herself by bathing in the water, I am changing myself by bathing in the moonlight.

While I do enjoy being a sunflower, being a moonflower is nice too.

It gives me an opportunity to act in ways I would never act as a sunflower.

Because I am limited by that title in what I can be and do.

If I give myself a new title, however, I am free of those old confines and moved into new ones.

Yes, there are things that a moonflower too can never do. It has confines of its own. But, by moving between these two positions I can, in life, achieve the most. I can see the most. I can experience the most.

Do not limit yourself to the confines of who you are now, externally.

Cast off your clothes.

Take a bath.

Exhale.

Look up towards the moon and sit in its light and realize that, as it washes over you, that it paints you with a new coat.

This will allow you to start again, to start something new.

It is so simple.

The trick is to realize it, before you put on your old clothes again.

I dance in the moonlight.

It is very wasteful of energy and very brash and, dare I say it, bold. A sunflower would never be caught dead doing such a silly thing.

But I am not a sunflower.

I sway and I dance and I drift in the secretive light of the kind, redeeming night; I am a creature alive and alluring and daring and adventurous.

Some of these things are the same as they are from when I am a sunflower.

But many of them are entirely new.

— A moth lands on my swaying body, crawling around my face as a nocturnal pollinator.

Mischievously, I turn away from the water as I dance, as the moth crawls across my face, so that Burch can not see my unchaste delinquency.

Haha. That tickles.

I am a sensual moonflower.

It is worth trying out sometime.