Labels

Saw a movie last night – it was Friday night at the movies at my church and the movie was Smoke Signals by Sherman Alexie. We watched, maybe 20 or so of us together in the darkened room and at the end, the lights were turned on and there was to be a facilitated discussion. I could not stay. I could not, having watched and listened to the film, start talking about it or anything that came up for me about it so I picked up purse and jacket and unobtrusively (I hoped) left. I took the movie and what I felt and thought home with me intact because -

Labels

Life is full of experiences
swirling about
free flowing,
waxing and waning,
through sound, light,
warmth, taste, smell, touch
Until they are labeled,
given a name

Which freezes them into being
what we call them
forever and ever.

In that moment
they cease to be ours
and become
what someone else
has said they are.

Sherry Swezey