Saturday, October 09, 2010
Reader Writing
A reader writes:
I am on a roadtrip heading to California. I am in Hawaii, and Maine and in a new house. I am everywhere and nowhere, and I am not here. I am far out in future, launched like a stone from the strap of a slingshot. I will land eventually, but that place of rest feels left to chance. I am stuck in internal struggle and a realization that the answers don’t live in a place of logic. Answers pulse thick and steady through these veins, like a stream off frozen mountains in late spring. And they sit there pooled in my gut. The real question, perhaps, is where am I not?
Tomorrow I am going to work. And after that, I am going to school for 7 hours to teach. And after that, I will come back home to this house that is all undone. I thought I was moving to a big new house in an upscale neighborhood. For a minute I forgot who i was. But now I am not going anywhere. And I need to gather up all my things, bring them back home where they belong. When I thought I was moving from here, I took down all the art, and patched nailholes and touched up paint. And when that was done, and the walls fresh and bare, I was relieved. But now that I am turning back, coming back, those blank walls stare me down and sink a heavy lonliness somewhere deep inside. I think, I think, art on the walls again will fix that.
For the past 15 months I have worked, days and weeks on end. This other house, in the upscale neighborhood, a shot at some possibility of getting ahead. It was never meant to be my home, but rather a project with a clear beginning, middle and end. The end being the for sale sign in the front yard, and someone else signing on all those dotted lines. But there was another end before that end, and the idea that I could own that home. And I got excited and agreed, and then I got scared and wanted to change my mind. And i waited and waited to feel differently about it, hanging art on those blank walls, carefully, with nails like straight pins, trying not to hurt the new smooth drywall surfaces. I arranged the pots and pans in the low cupboards, filled deep drawers with tupperware and mixing bowls. I put food in the pantry, hung hooks in the entryways. I spent days and too much money on fancy curtain rods, using a level to hang them all perfectly straight and right. I built out the master closet with more shelves and rods and drawers than I have clothes for. Numbers hang above the new mailbox that locks, waitng for the future bills that will come now in someone elses name. I know I am tired of this process and this thought loops through my mind, I just want my life back, I just want my life back.
It is ironic to think that my students are my teachers. I taught a class last wednesday, and students spent most of it working on an assignment. One student was utterly frustrated and on the verge of tears for most of the class. I found myself watching her, like birds watch nests. I kept making the rounds, noting progress, or offering suggestions. And each time I ended up back in the corner where she was, I asked how she was doing. And each time was the same, and her eyes filled with tears and her face got red. And I knew she wanted to give up. I leaned over and looked her in the eyes, and I let her tell me she was frustrated. And I just said don’t give up, and that I would help her. Class ended and she made a point of coming to thank me for helping her. Isn’t it all any of us really need, is to know we aren’t alone, and that someone is listening?
I admit my life shoots past me, and that sometimes I feel like an outsider. What keeps me upright and on a path, what feeds that part of me that bears lightness, is being a part of this greater whole. It’s being awake enough to seize opportunities to help other people or animals. Or opening up enough to let nature in. I love spring, when the robins come back, and the sound they make at daybreak. Or dusk, when they are belting out the last song of the day, searching for a perfect mate. Once I saw a baby hawk in my tree outside the window. And today I watched a squirrel on the fence, enjoying a fresh green walnut off the neighbor tree. I have been in this house long enough to know that the leaves on the maple tree out front will turn yellow and orange and then dark red. And if I’m not paying attention, rain and wind will strip twigs and branches bare for winter. And I will have missed the show.
I have lived long enough to know that life is a steady coming in and going out, giving and receiving, losing and finding. If I can get into that rhythm, in the knowing for certain that nothing stays the same, if I can surrender the resistance, I am less likely to suffer. Stronger than the sense of what am I giving up, is how do I get back what I had? What happened to my voice, my ability to reason and problem solve, my confidence and decision making? It’s like I packed it all up in a big box for the move, and now I can’t seem to find it. Yet I know it’s here somewhere.
I want to write about my neighbor and the dog bones, and the way passionflower vine grows to cover the ugly old metal and wire fence. I want to write about the strange and beautiful pink cluster lilies that are blooming now in early october on the north side of the house. I want to write about the soup I made today, and how it filled this half made home with a much needed sense of love and nurturing. I want to write about anything but darkness and dangers, because I spend enough time there. We humans are quick to label experience, with good or bad or tragic or joyful, a label that sums things up. What I know is that there is goodness and gifts in some of the darkest places, and that lightness also bears suffering.
My immediate desire is to simply have my life back in order, and for that to be enough. I feel like a dog, and that there’s a dried bone from a box for me, if I just do the trick. C’mon girl, speak your truth.
angie martorana
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