Keep an eye out

Nightlight 1-24-13

I did not grow up in a religious home and I don't know who gave me this little praying nightlight figurine. Maybe the same person who gave me the Holly Hobbie faux scroll that hung above the bureau on my childhood bedroom wall, the one with the menacing prayer of doom: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."  If I should die before I wake? As in, DIE? In my sleep?

It's no wonder I have battled insomnia since I was a little kid. It's no wonder I still feel the need to keep an eye out. You never know what might be lurking in the shadows waiting to snatch your soul while you sleep.

This eternally praying face is usually so serene and placid, with her long lashed, hand-painted eyes resting gently shut. But wearing these knowing, grown-up eyes with their sideways glance, she has a decidedly different psychology. She seems wary. Suspicious. Watchful. Distrustful. A little bit skeptical. Like she's seen a thing or two and she might be up all night.

This little light of mine

This face is a hand-painted ceramic nightlight from my childhood. As far back as I can remember, she has always knelt somewhere in my bedroom, eternally calm and sweetly earnest in her unceasing posture of prayer. It is captivating little face, I think. There used to be an electrical cord with a bulb that lit her from the inside so that she glowed warm and soft all through the night. But somewhere along the way, her light got lost. Now she is just a hollow shell with no power over the darkness.

Nightlight 1-13-13