April 1, 2026

Earlier this afternoon, I looked in the mirror of my black phone screen and asked, “Who am I?” A rather philosophical question for a Wednesday. Given the day, I had to consider if I was attempting to fool myself into thinking I was someone I truly was not.

Just three days ago, I had literally pulled the rug out from under myself. With a few moves of my living room furniture, and the right music filling the Sunday afternoon air, the last twenty years of my life completely disappeared from the common area of my home. Rather than leaving a hole where memories, both tragic and bittersweet, once stood, I breathed easier. I knew there was no return, but only space and room to nurture the new life already revealing itself. The novelty of the hardwood floor, clean and untouched, has not lost its edge in my mind, even as mid-week has approached. Everyday I look at my floor and realize how much of my life, like this floor, was lived out wearing a mask. Peeling back two decades meant showing the world, or at least my visitors, what had been there all along. But for one reason or another, I, nor the floor beneath my rug, was not ready, as my mother used to say, “for public consumption.” 

This week, the unveiling began, in an unexpected way. The closure I sought finally manifested. Now I look at my living room floor, adorned with its beautiful round rugs instead of harsh lines, and declare this to be my space. And no one can ever take it from me. 

Like my floor, my story continues to be revealed. In today’s microfiction, a woman remains at rest in paradise, while surrounded by turmoil, both external and internal. I hope you enjoy “Tropical Sands.”