Author: KWilan

Desert – the verb

KWilan 3 Comments

Dailypost – Desert

I have decided to use the daily-prompt to aid with my writer’s block. It is my luck that today’s word is a tough one – a few days ago it was false and yesterday it was glass.

Desert as a noun means a wasteland – or a waterless land. Dry and very little vegetation – or a wilderness. Desert as a verb – means abandon with the intention of never returning.   To fail someone in a time of need

Desert – the verb

I placed a call and the voice on the other end accuses “where have you been? Why has it been so long since I heard from you?” I grip the phone and anger starts to simmer. “I have been busy” I answer between clenched teeth, “The kids, work, the house, everyone wants a piece of me”. I close my eyes and bite my tongue. I want to ask the same questions “Where have you been? Why has it been so long since I heard from you?” She acts wounded and hurt as if I have deserted her. But who deserted whom?

To be in a relationship with her, there is an unwritten contract that states; “You must be the one to contact me, to reach out to me – if you do not fulfill this part of the contract then you will be guilty of desertion”.  I seethe at how unfair this contract is.  In the chaos of my own life with obligations to everyone, my children, my husband and my employer – how they all fill my day as I try to meet their needs. The hours fly by and days blend into each other. When I do have a minute and I dial the phone I am accused of putting her last.

I can’t remember the last time she made the first move – the one to reach out to me. How it would brighten my day if for once she would call and ask “Is there anything I can do, so that we can spend time together?” I believe it would bring tears to my eyes and joy to my worn out soul.

But this is our relationship and it is my duty to keep up my part of the contract.   It is the only relationship we will have – and it is better than no relationship. I will not desert her.

 

 

Dear Me;

KWilan 2 Comments

I had a conversation recently about the importance of writing and keeping journals. My friend made a face of horror and said she would be afraid someone would find it. I told her to write and then destroy it. “What is the point?” she asked. The point is to write it down so one can manage whatever emotion is overpowering the situation. When I write – I gain control of the emotions and work through the situation. It’s the process of writing that heals – it is optional to keep what one has written.

I followed my own advice as I tried to deal with the emotions that surround my oldest son’s birthday. Every year I am haunted by the memory of his day of birth; it was filled with fear, anger and loneliness and I feel robbed every time the memory resurfaces. I decided this year I am going to deal with the emotions that surround this day by writing my younger self a letter – one she would find on that lonely sleepless night.

The process took several attempts. The first three letters were lists of what I did wrong, situations I should have handled better and a “heads up” for events that I should stop from happening.   Do I blame her for my past? Do I want to convey to her – to my younger self on one of the toughest nights of her life -all the things she will do wrong? The image that haunts me is of a scared girl who feels completely alone and now responsible for a baby. I allow my imagination take flight and let it pull me back in time – back in the delivery room on the night after my son’s birth.

I find her in the hospital bed wide-awake. A man lounges in the recliner in the corner, head back snoring loudly. She is glaring at him; it is her anger that will not allow her to sleep. She has to go to the bathroom and rings for a nurse to help her. They both glare at the snoring man as the nurse helps her back into bed.  The nurse whispers “Do you want me to wake him up and send him home?” The young girl shakes her head. “You must rest” the nurse adds and reaches for the overnight bag on a nearby chair.   “Try reading to take your mind off things” she pulls out a book and a magazine from the bag and lays them on the hospital table. The nurse glares one last time at the snoring man and turns to walk out the door. The young mother reaches for her book and finds a white folded paper sticking out of it, like a bookmark. She pulls it out of the book and hesitates to unfold it. She glances at the sleeping man and wonders if he had written her an apology for not being home and being unreachable when she went into labor. A frantic call to the hospital and a kind nurse helped ease her fears as she waited for him to come home. He came home close to 3:00 am, in the middle of a contraction. She could only glare at him, tears in her eyes and a phone to her ear.

She unfolds the paper and gently irons out the creases. She holds it closer to the lamp and reads the salutation; Dear me. The frown deepens and she is momentarily disappointed that it was not from him; then her expression changes to confusion and then to wonder as she quickly reads the letter.

Tears well up and spill down her cheeks as she reads, how could this be? It is some kind of miracle or is it a joke? Who would write a letter like this? She reaches for a tissue from the box on the nearby table and dabs her eyes. She searches her tired brain for a clue on who would write such a letter. She has lost touch with most of her friends and her family would not write such a thing. Could it really be from her future self? A slight smile and a spark of hope shows in her eye. She raised the letter towards the light to read it again – and this time slowly – as if savoring it. Her mouth moves as she reads, muttering the words softly into the quiet room.

Dear Me…

I started this letter on June 12, 2016 – 27 years in your future.   I made several attempts at writing this letter and it has taken me a couple of weeks to find the words that would give you the hope you need. Every year on our son’s birthday, I am haunted by the image of you in a hospital bed, unable to sleep, completely alone and overwhelmingly afraid. I remember what you are feeling at this moment, exhausted from the labor and awake for over 24 hours, in pain from a complicated delivery requiring many stitches and infuriate at the baby’s father. I know you are enraged at yourself, for on what should be the happiest day of your life – you feel like crying; because the love you feel for that baby the instant you laid your eyes on him, will forever tie you to the sleeping man beside you. You will find it ironic; that the man you thought would save you from a life like our mother’s will actually cause you to follow in her footsteps.

You will make thousands of mistakes and you will feel completely inadequate for the next 27 years and probably beyond that. You will go to bed thinking you could have done things better and will wonder if the child would be better off without you. You will be uncomfortable with your new identity of a mother –for you cannot trust yourself to be in that role. I am not writing you to tell you all the things you did wrong or what you should do differently to change the course of our story; I do not have that kind of power to change the past. What I want you to know is that your story is perfect – although it was lived imperfectly.  

Right now you are forming an illusion of what your story should look like. You will blame yourself when the illusion does not become a reality and you will be extremely disappointed in yourself. You will be faced with life changing events in your lifetime – and you will wonder how you will survive. You will survive and, may I dare say, are better because of it.

I embrace our history – our story and I am proud of who I am today. And I owe it to you, for stumbling through life, for making mistakes and getting back up and trying again. Right now you feel weak and afraid – but you will become strong and you will learn to be brave. It takes you along time to learn to fully trust anyone – but you do learn to trust yourself. And the illusion that you have right now of what a perfect life is – there is no such thing. Life is a struggle – but within that struggle there is beauty – much like the birth of a baby – all that labor and pain to deliver the most precious gift you will ever receive.

Thank you my 21-year-old self for not giving up – thank you for struggling to become who I am today.

Much love from your 48 year old self.

She folds the paper and places it in the book and hugs the book to her chest. It was all she needed, a small morsel of hope to help her sleep. She closes her eyes and falls into a deep sleep, still hugging the book and a small smile on her face.

This is the image that I will carry back to the present and one I will remember on all future birthdays. Writing is story telling – and sometimes I need to re-write the story to find the beauty in the struggle – to find the gift.

 

The Sun Burns Time

KWilan 4 Comments

It is spring and the garden wakes up from its winter nap. Buds appear on trees and shoots push through the earth, reaching for the sun as it travels across the sky. I too follow the sun’s journey. I watch it rise in the morning, I eat my lunch when it is at its highest and my dinner when it sets. I watch it turn the sky aflame when it dips behind the mountain and I see its reflection on the moon before I fall asleep. The day is gone.

I am reminded of a passage from Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury…

“He saw the moon low in the sky – the light of the moon was cause by what? By the sun of course. What lights the sun? Its own fire. The sun goes on day after day burning and burning. The sun and time – the sun and time and burning – burning…. The sun and every clock on the earth – it all came together and became a single thought in his mind. After along time of running on the land and a short time of floating in the river, he knew why he must never burn (books, houses etc..) in his life. The sun burned everyday – it burn time. The world rushed in circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people without any help from him. If he burned things and the sun burned time then everything burned. One had to stop – the sun wouldn’t… Someone had to do the saving… in books, memories. Safe from the matches of men.”

Burning time. I do not follow the sun, I run from it – trying to squeeze as much as I can before the day burns away. What will withstand the assault of the sun? A story or a lesson to be told over generations? A piece of me that will live on when the sun burns my last day? A paragraph that would speak to someone years later – and inspire someone to pen his own words? Yes, I should preserve my story before time runs out – because it will run out, everything eventually dies. The only thing that can live is the memory – and that too may die if I do not record it.

I have memories of my son who passed in 2009. I can close my eyes and see his face, his smile, and his blue eyes. I have this ache in my heart and I have a million tears that I will shed for the rest of my days… and I also have a treasure, his poem. When I read it, I can imagine him writing it, sitting with computer in his lap, fingers gliding over the keyboard as the words make their way from his imagination to his fingertips. I can see him looking up and gazing out the window waiting for inspiration. It is as if he is speaking to me the words I need to hear now – words of comfort.  The sun cannot burn this – it is a time in his life captured for as long as I need it. This is why I write and this is why you should write – to capture a piece of time – to expose a piece of yourself to the future world – for the ones that will miss you when you are gone and for the ones who will wish they could have known you. Hurry, for the sun will be up soon and speeding across the sky – burning time.

My son’s poem  

Watching myself through his eye. Waving goodbye Foreseeing but still repeating

Watching myself through his eye. To high to realize
Ever-seeing but still repeating

Watching myself through their eyes. Two sides trying to compromise
Foreseeing but still repeating

Watching under a different light. Am I still alive?
Foreseeing something changing

Watching my life
Ascending towards the sky
Looking straight into his eye

Asking why?

How did I die?

Up here you forget how to cry. Knowing this place wasn’t a lie
Being watched by his eye. Still learning how to fly

Seeing someone changing.

Whose Story Is It?

KWilan 7 Comments

I am in hibernation and have spent the last few days wrapped up in a blanket in front of the fireplace.  As the snowstorm rages outside I immersed myself in my history by reading my journals.  I am surprised as I find memories that were long buried. And I brace myself for the memories I know I will encounter on my timeline.  A ghost lurks in my journals and I found him half way through the journal marked 1989.

I read about the day the baby boy was born and the difficulty I had in believing that I was his mother. I relived introducing him to his little sister when he was two. I laughed at his antics during his preschool years. I am reminded what a difficult child he was. How he hated new things or differing from his routine. How terrified he was about going to school. How devastated he was when I divorced his daddy.

He hated me, but still I pushed him. I pushed him to do home work, to practice piano, to eat right, to go to sleep at a decent hour and to brush his teeth. Everything with him was a battle. A war between doing what I knew he needed and what he wanted. In my eyes what he wanted was unacceptable. He wanted to hide away, to recluse to a safe place where everything was within his control. But I knew it was a prison and did everything in my power to keep him actively engaged in the outside world.

Then we moved to another state in the middle of his freshman year of high school.  A cease-fire was called on a count of my overwhelming sense of guilt. The relocation had a huge impact on him. I was occupied as I tried to navigate my way around a strange place and he withdrew into a world of video games. It was a lonely year for both of us. As I became involved in my three younger children’s lives of school and church, my determination came back to get him motivated again. The war was back on. We argued daily and fought constantly until the day he graduated.

We all came together and gathered around him to celebrate graduation, including his dad.   Early the next morning after the celebration, I was awoken by noise downstairs. I went to investigate and found my son with his bags packed by the front door. I glanced out the window to see his dad’s car in the driveway. He was going to leave without saying goodbye. I stood in front of the door and forbade him to leave, as if I had any power to make him stay. He said nothing with his head bowed as he waited for me to move. A silent war raged for what seemed like eternity but was only a few minutes. Everything in me knew that this was a horrible mistake. Powerless, I moved away from the door and he left without saying a word.

I did not see or hear from him again until six months later when he came home briefly for Christmas. In honor of the holidays, we were civil and spoke of only trivial issues, like weather or music. He left to go back to his dad’s and I went back to worrying. He called once in awhile to let me know he was okay and that he was working and saving his money for a vehicle. As soon as he bought his truck, he asked to come home.

He drove the five hundred miles that separated us, arriving home at 2 am. I answered the door to a shadowy figure. His hood was up over his head and I could not see his face in the porch light. I was startled at how stooped he was, he looked defeated as if he failed an important test. I pulled him into my arms and whispered, “Welcome home”. I could feel him relax in my embrace. After a moment I moved aside and told him “it’s late, go to bed”. He carried his burden up the stairs and went to his bedroom and he slept for three days.

The war started up again after a few months. I spent the next year pushing him out of the house. I pushed him to find a job. I pushed him to find friends and I pushed him to be respectful to us. Slowly he began to get into a rhythm of work, friends, video games, and chores. I yelled less and he rebelled less. We learned how to communicate to each other over brutal games of scrabble. I learned to trust him and worried less about his choices. He kept me informed of his schedule and texted me during the day just to say hello. An alliance was formed and the war ended.

The entry of my journal on the night he died was about him sending me a text message to let me know that he would be out late and would be staying with his friend so he would not disturb us. I wrote in my journal about how far we had come and how relieved I was that a connection was finally made. We were communicating instead of fighting.  I went to bed and slept peacefully.

After his death, my first question was “Did he know how much I loved him?” I spent his lifetime fighting with him and pushing him to do more.   And immediately my second question was, “Did I cause his death?” Because I pushed him, forced him out into the world and into danger.

These questions still haunt me. I desperately wish I could rewrite the story found in my journals. In it, I find myself the villain. If only I could correct all the mistakes I made. I wish I could change the story to reflect me being the perfect mother and he being the perfect son.

As I reflect on this history, I force myself to change my perspective and think about it being his story and not mine.  He needed me to push him to the next level. I believe this is the reason he came home. The more I pushed the more he did, the more he did the happier he became. The happier he was the more open he was to a relationship with those around him, his siblings, his friends and me, his mother.

I share this story with his younger brothers, now teenagers. They can relate with his fear and the risk that comes with living. They can relate with their mother and why I push them to do more. They ask questions and I admit I do not have the answers, but together we will learn lessons from his story. This is how his story lives on.

My story is found in writing his story.  His story had such a huge impact on my life and it is the connection between the woman I was in the story and the woman I am today and the woman I have yet to become.

Our stories knit together a beautiful tapestry and each individual thread weaves meaning that only can be understood if we stand back and reflect upon the whole picture.

Why?

KWilan 3 Comments

Writing prompt: Mistake

“What do I do with my latest mistake?” I sing to myself lyrics from an old song.  I stand over pieces of an old cabinet I purchased from a friend.  It broke apart in transit to my car; the glass door hutch fell off the base and it now lays in two pieces on my basement floor, the brightly orange painted insides looks like a gaping wound.  A friend suggested I refinish it and I have scrapped many layers of paint off the drawer front and have found that it is not made of real wood.   I have made a huge mistake.  I try to think of the excuses I will tell my friends when they ask how the project is going.  I think of facing my husband and how I wasted money on this when we have a long list of other projects.  I decide to hide the pieces under an old sheet, push it into a corner and walk away. I am going to leave it there until I figure out what I am going to do with it.

I tackle the next item on my chore list; my office.  I have accumulated piles over the previous year and they need to be dealt with.  I start with my pile of journals.  A box that holds all my journals, sits in the corner.  I open the lid and the musty smell of old paper fills the air; reminding me how old I am.  I have kept journals since the age of twelve, when my grandmother gave me a red diary with a gold lock.  I dig to the bottom and find the relic, its lock broken long ago from snooping brothers.  I open to the middle of the book and find unrecognizable scribbles.  A forgotten code I wrote in to keep my secrets safe from prying eyes.  I return the small diary back to the bottom of the box and upheave a black three-ring binder.  It opens slightly revealing my neat penmanship.  Curious, I open the book and find the year 1985, the year I turned eighteen.

On the pages, I find a depressed and lonely girl struggling with pains of growing up.  The pages are filled with regret for the mistakes she has made and the uncertainty of the future.  The negativity leaped off the page to the point of embarrassment and I skip ahead to the middle of the year.  In this section, I was dating a man dubbed REE.   He was ten years older, not particularly good looking but a smile that lit up his face.  I saw him everyday at the place I worked, he worked downstairs in the plant and I worked upstairs in the office.  My entries were filled with how much fun REE was and how he had a knack of making any situation hysterical.  A huge contrast to the depressed girl I found earlier.  It was a few months into the relationship when REE stood me up for the first time.  He did not show up for our date, he did not call and I could not get a hold of him.  The entry was filled with worry; it did not cross my mind that he had forgotten about me.  This realization came later as I wrote about the deteriorating relationship.  I skip to a part where the neat penmanship changes into big ugly scrawling words.  Certain words were capitalized to emphasize my anger and hurt.  I had found out REE’s landlord was a woman and was more than his landlord.  She had found out about me and threatened to kick him out if he continued to see me. I believed him when he told me that he wanted to be with me but could not afford to move out.  He begged me to wait for him and I did.  The plant closed during the holidays and I did not hear from REE for three weeks.  I waited and I waited.  When we returned to work, he barely spoke to me.  I was deeply hurt.

Ashamed, I return the journal back to the box and add last year’s notebooks to the top of the pile and put the lid back on the box.   I push the box of mistakes back into its corner.

I try to motivate myself to move onto the next chore but I don’t get up.  I am still sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall.  My family is out of the house and the quiet envelops me and I feel alone.  This scares me a little and I have the urge to fill the quiet with the noise from busy work or turning on the TV.  I want to drown out the buzz of questions, flying in the air like nasty mosquitoes.  I want to swat them away and run for cover, but the heaviness of the quiet keeps me where I am.    “Why did I have to go through that?”  “Why did I give up my dignity for acceptance?”  “Why do I make such stupid decisions?” “Why? Why? Why?”  The questions bombard me, I have kept them bottled up too long and they are relentless.

Within the drone of whys I sense a different question emerging.  The more I focus, the more clearer it becomes until it rises above the din and booms “Why not?”  The question hangs there, dominating the others.  At first I am confused, why not means to stop asking the questions and just do it, whatever “it” is.  When REE asked me out, I answered “Why not”.  And I asked “why not” when I wrote the check for cabinet hiding in the corner of my basement.  It dawns on me; the question of why needs to be asked, either before or after the event.  If I answer with a “why not” before than I better be ready to answer the “why” afterwards.  A lesson cannot be learned unless the questions are asked.

I reopen the box and remove the books by the handfuls, including the black three-ring binder.  I stack them in a semi-circle around me.  Each book is different and each holding a piece of my history.  The questions come from an unfinished story and my story resides within in these journals.  To find the answers I am going to have to explore my story, not hide it away in a box.

A slamming of a car door announces the return of my family.  I catch a glimpse of my boys through the doorway, chatting about their lesson and heading towards the fridge.  The house fills with their commotion and it is a welcoming sound.  My husband’s frame fills the doorway of my office, he asks “What’s with the piece of furniture under the sheet in the corner of the basement?”

“A mistake” I answer, looking up at him from my seat on the floor.

He nods as if agreeing with me and asks, “What are you going to do with it?”

I add the journals I am holding to a stack and push myself up.  I step over my piles and join him at the doorway.  “I am going to learn from it”.

“And those?” he asks, pointing to the journals.   I glance back at the multi-colored books and answer, “I’m going to learn from those too”

“Why?”

I resist the urge to answer “Why not”.  I let his question hang there unanswered and head towards the kitchen to feed the boys.

Why indeed.

Hello My Name Is…

KWilan 4 Comments

Hello my name is Kim and I am a perfectionist. Not a new realization, I’ve known this most of my life. In fact, it was one of those things I said proudly as I strive for perfection and required those around me to do likewise. An exercise that we did in a group I facilitated last year required us to list all our characteristics and all our flaws and to circle the ones that match. It was interesting to see if the labels we accept were misunderstood characteristics. One of my characteristics is perfectionism, but I never classified it as a flaw. I thought perfectionism as a good thing; a person always striving for the best. I realize now that it is can be a roadblock and that I am stuck behind it. Continue reading →

SEARCHING FOR INSPIRATION

KWilan 2 Comments

My garden is in the stage of summer slowly dying into autumn. I follow the path in search for inspiration and tiny moths  bombard me. They dance around my head making me dizzy.  They swarm to a nearby patch of marigolds.  They hop from flower to flower drinking in the nectar until they seem drunk on it’s sweetness, then they leap into the air whirling and twirling like leaves in the wind, trying to impress a mate to complete its life cycle.

I want to continue my search in nature’s wonder for a spark to ignite my imagination, but fear has joined me on the path. Fear wants me to get back to business. Fear wants everything to run smoothly and demands me to do everything perfectly.   Fear reminds me of all the people who are counting on me to do my share. “But I am hungry for inspiration and I long to create a story” I argue.

I am about to give into fear’s demand and give up on my quest when a small jewel of a bird hums past me and takes a sip of the sweet juice from the nearby feeder. It dips its head twice before taking off like a helicopter, hovering for a moment than disappearing. I noticed that I was holding my breath and I let it out slowly. The cleansing breath has subdued fear for a moment and I finally can hear myself think. I let the quietness wash over me until I hear the buzz of another hummingbird. As I watch it dine, I feel the stress fade away and I can feel the words lining up and a story taking shape. “Yes my little friend, I need this as much as you need that nectar”.

My feather muse leaves its perch and hovers in mid-air; he lets out a battle cry chirp as two smaller hummingbirds threaten to drink from the feeder. They circle each other readying themselves for war. I watch them spar with their tiny sword beaks and chase each other around the garden. I have read that the hummingbirds need frequent feedings because they use so much energy in flying and this time of year they need to fatten up to migrate. Why would they waste so much energy fighting with each other when there is plenty of food?

They fly around me; their beautiful feathers shine with brilliant colors as they move in the sunlight. With each twist and turn each one shines with it’s own kind of radiance, a jewel dancing on the wind in a perfectly orchestrated ballet. It is a story of nature and how a creature will fight for what he believes he needs for survival.

One of the birds flies to where I am standing and directs his angry chirps at me. I imagine him saying, “What are you looking at, punk!” I laugh at this image and answer the little gangster, “Are you going to fight me? It’s my garden and my feeder.”   The war ends as quickly as it began. The feeder sways gently in the breeze and the pegs are bare of patrons. All that energy used and still no one has eaten.

I look around at the fading garden and I can see why nature is in a state of urgency, the season is changing and there is much to do. This time of year is busy for us humans too.   It seems that we go from slow summer days to fast and furious fall. Our schedules are filled and there is little room for leisure activities like searching for creativity in the garden. I find myself sending up curt prayer to God. I shake my fist and chirp angry words at him as if it is his fault. I can almost hear him say, “You are going to fight me? It’s my garden and I have provided for you.” I smile at this irony and I take a sip from the inspiration placed before me. I allow it to trickle down into my soul where it will be use to color my world with words. The morsel of dancing hummingbirds will forever live on the page and I will snack upon it when I can’t convince fear to allow me to have a full-course meal of inspiration.

It is energy well spent.

The Hang-Over

KWilan 2 Comments

I woke up hung over. My eyes are sensitive to light and they hurt. I am nauseous and coffee is only making it worse. My head feels so heavy and it is throbbing. I do not know why I put myself through this.  I do enjoy an occasional drink, but this hangover is not from over-indulging in alcohol.  This hangover was from an over-indulgence of self-pity.

Yesterday was a perfect day. The Saturday of Labor day weekend. It was a day that had no agenda. It was my favorite kind of day, where I did a little of everything but still a lot of nothing. All the kids were gone doing their own thing giving my husband and I leisurely shopped for an area rug and had went out for a simple dinner.  The night made complete, when I had total domain over the television, my dogs snoozing by my feet and my husband snoozing in the chair beside me, my life felt complete.

As I headed for bed, I paused on the landing of the stairs and looked at the closed doors to my children’s bedrooms. The quiet of those empty rooms and the snoring chorus of tired dogs and my overworked husband filled me with a sense of despair. It was not bedtime, but party-time with loneliness.

We partied by wallowing in sadness and over-indulging in self-pity. We listen to songs of heartbreak and wrote poems of sorrow. We cried a river of tears as we reminisced about the good old days when life was filled with people and activity. We laughed at how I complained then about my life being filled with so much noise and how I complain now that it is too quiet. All night long we consumed emotions. We mixed anger with fear and worked up to mixing guilt with shame. Soon I was intoxicated and unable to see straight. My good life became a blur under the influence of these emotions. My foreboding outlook impaired my judgment and I allowed Loneliness to invite Depression and Regret to the pity-party. I finally passed out from exhaustion in the early morning hours.

I do not mean to make light of addicts and their struggle. I have witnessed loved ones who have struggled with addictions and have seen the havoc it created. I have had a few alcoholic hangovers and I can attest that the way I feel this morning resembles that.   It leaves me to wonder if I could be a recovering addict of my self-pity. The transformation I have gone through is actually recovery of the addiction to my emotions and their delusional filter. I would allow my emotions to be felt in the extreme and all of my rational thoughts would go out the window.  Last night the realization hit me that those bedrooms will soon be empty for good as each of my remaining children leave the nest. I focused on the fear of the unknown future and off the wagon I went and into my addiction of self-pity.

Change, whether good or bad, is going to happen. It upheavals my life and I have to readjust myself to make room for it. In my research I have heard over and over that the mind can only focus on the future or remember the past. Last night my mind thought my future looked lonely because I am losing my purpose and therefore, my identity of what I have been for over twenty-five years. These are healthy emotions and I need to express them, just as I would have an occasional drink, but I took it to the extreme and went overboard.

The irony of this whole situation is that I am battling my loneliness in my quiet time, the time where I sit “alone” and contemplate life’s lessons. It is where I quiet the mind and feed my soul. What is loneliness to the mind is solitude to the soul. The soul drinks in the nourishment it finds in solitude and detoxes my mind of its negativity. It is the best cure for an emotional hangover.

Change

KWilan 6 Comments

It had been an emotionally draining day. My eyes burned from exhaustion and it was relief to close them. I felt my body relax and was on the brink of slumber when I was jolted awake by a knock upon my door. “Go away” I groaned.

“Mom, let me in” the baritone voice of my oldest son shocked me to an upright position. It has been a long time since he visited my dreams.

“I am so glad you are here.” I said as I pulled open the door. He stood there with a grin on his face. He looked exactly as I remembered him. An older replica of this brother, except his eyes shined a bright blue instead of grey. I reached up and brushed the hair out his eyes and his smile deepened until his dimples shown. How I miss him. Tears stung my eyes.

“Don’t,” he pleaded. “We have to talk”.

I took a deep breath and swallowed the tears. “I know, have you seen what the neighbors have done to our spot?” I asked sitting on the bed.

“Yeah” he said sitting next to me. “It sure changes the feel of it doesn’t it?”

“It’s awful and I am so upset.”

“I know you are.”

I jumped up and paced in front of him. “That place was special to me, to us! You know how many hours I have sat at that lakeshore, dealing with the pain of losing you.”

“Let’s go take a look.” He said.

We stood at the lakeshore viewing the damage. A small group of trees and brush had separated the shoreline from the grassy field of the greenbelt owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority or TVA. When I sat on the shore, the tree line would create a barrier between the neighbors, giving me the privacy I needed. The neighbors had spent the last two days clearing the brush and trimming the trees. I looked up into the treetops and saw no evidence of the cranes that use to nest there.

We walked towards the shore. He motioned towards the rock I used to sit upon. A vision of me sat upon the rock.  We watch her passionately write in a notebook. She looked up, her face shiny with tears. I followed her gaze as she looked out over the lake.   A small speck was flying over the water and as it got closer, I noticed it was a crane coming in for the night. I watched her watch the bird glide into the brush behind her, she smiled at the sound of squawking as other birds made room for the new arrival.

“This is worse than the huge boat-dock they installed a few years ago” I told my boy as the vision faded. “You know I love this place and the wildlife that lives here. It is ruined”

“Things change” he said.

“Why did I have to lose this too? Why can’t I have this one small thing?” Tears filled my eyes blurring the landscape. I raise my fist to the clouds, to God. “Why do you keep taking from me? I need something to hold on to”.

“Mom,” he interrupted.  “God doesn’t want you to hold on to  things. Holding on to  things holds you back”. Still holding my hand he guided me towards the water’s edge. Two beached kayaks rested on the rocky shore.

“I want to show you something. You up for it?” He asked.

Nodding through my tears, I allowed him to guide me into my kayak. “Ready?” He asked.  We followed a narrow inlet that opened up into a secluded cove. White egrets glided in a zigzag pattern looking for a place to roost. Blue herons spotted the shoreline looking for an evening snack. He pointed with his paddle towards a bird that was flying low over the water. It was the type of crane that nested in the trees that the neighbor took down. I watch it fly to the shore and perched in a nearby tree.

“Mom” he said. “Do you need the shoreline when you have the lake? Maybe it is time to move on” He gestured to our surroundings.  A school of minnows rained on the water’s surface and a huge fish somersaulted creating circle ripples of waves. I watched the rings get bigger and bigger until they faded.

“Life is filled with events,” he continued.  “It sends waves of change, some small like those minnows and some huge like that fish. Denying or resisting change is like trying to stop those rings from expanding.  Your acceptance of change,” He paused, looking at me, as if to make sure I was listening, “your acceptance of loss expands your world.”

I stared into his face, trying to etch this scene into my mind. Do I accept that he is gone? The pain of acknowledging that pierced my soul and it almost made me cry out. “It is so hard” I said.

“Yep” was all he said. I looked at him and he was grinning. I laughed and wiped away the tears. “Yep” I agreed.

We floated together until the sun set behind the mountains, the water turned smooth likes glass and a deep blue, the same color of his eyes. I knew our time would end soon.  I had so much I wanted to say, but I swallowed the words and only said, “I love you.”

“I know” he answered, his voice far away.

I closed my eyes trying to keep him with me.  When I opened them, dawn was brightening the window of my bedroom. I laid in bed for a long time, digesting the lesson of the dream. I allowed the emotions to run their course. I was angry about the change and saddened over the loss of my special place.  I tried not to resist the change and allow it it expand me.  I envision the rings made by the fish.  It will be my visual as I adjust to this new loss.

Master Gardener

KWilan 1 Comment

This morning I was running late for my meeting with the master gardener. When the weather permits we try to meet in the garden. Today would be another hot summer day and we agree to meet at dawn before the heat became unbearable. I overslept and the sun was already over the horizon. I made my way to the bench we used for these early meetings and he was not there. I decided to sit down for a moment hoping he would show up. As I waited, the sun crested the treetops and turned the colors vibrant. I closed my eyes and worshiped. I sensed a presence next to me and when I opened my eyes I found the master gardener. Continue reading →