June 8, 2011: Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night or before dawn and can't go back to sleep. My brain buzzes with philosophical and spiritual queries. What makes up a life? With death knocking at the door how does one know one is truly living? Does it matter what we do as long as we do good works? Does anyone notice what we do? And need we care whether people notice us or not? I watch people living their lives and most people don't wrack their souls for meaning. The day comes, the routines fill the hours and the night finds us in bed once again. I've written about this before: the wanting to be noticed, the wanting to have a purpose, the beauty and extraordinary found in the plain and the ordinary. I'm trying to listen to my heart to tell me what to do, but sometimes the heart isn't speaking loud enough.
As I took Lacey for a neighborhood walk yesterday afternoon, I thought about my childhood neighbor. My sister Donna's best friend was Denise who lived with her mother, her grandmother and grandfather, her brother and her step father. Denise lived directly behind us on the corner of her street. After her husband, Denise's grandfather, died and as the full-figured grandmother aged, she could be seen most mornings in her nightgown bent over weeding her front garden. She wore absolutely no make-up and often no shoes; her graying, windblown hair was uncombed and her thin nightgown showed off her wrinkles and flabby muscles. I use to wonder why she was weeding in her night clothes and I use to wonder at her focused contentment doing such a mundane task. As an ever curious adolescent, I did notice her and as an aging adult I do remember her.
This grandmother's garden was never beautiful but rather plain despite each morning's work. But whatever drew her to her garden, drew her to her reason for living. I understand this neighbor now. I understand this morning ritual; I understand the weeding, for I love to garden and I love to weed. What this neighbor probably was discovering and what I am realizing is that as we age we love feeling the earth's soil beneath our feet, we love watching plants grow, we love watching life happening before our very eyes.
If truth be told I am happiest in my garden. Hours pass unawares. Philosophical queries no longer matter. I am in the moment. I am crouched down clearing a space between my pea plants and I am following the curves of the leaves, the slender stretching of the stems, the white flowers transforming themselves into dangling eatable pods. I do love beauty and so I work to make my garden beautiful. I have raised beds where my front lawn used to be and I consider my flower and vegetable garden a gift to our neighborhood... for people walk by and give comments of notice and gratitude.
How I wish planting, weeding, cultivating were enough for me. But though the brain is calmed and even stops while my feet are grounded, it starts back up again soon after. The grandmother instinctively knew she wanted to return to the source, just as I know I want to feel earth's presence before I leave her. That's why I now see the blueness of the blue jay, the black dots of the ladybug and the slime trails of the snails. But just as I am seeing these details of being, I admit too want my giving and my gifts to be seen.
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I keep writing even though currently I am not sure what I need to write about. My lack of sleep tells me there are further worlds and words to explore, further stories to compose. Yesterday was Louise Erdrich's birthday, a favorite author of mine. Part Native American and part German, she leans towards her Ojibwa background and tells earth bound, complicated tales about ordinary people. Her writing mesmerizes me. She also owns a Native bookstore, Birchbark Books, in her home state of Minnesota. For years I have scanned her website and for years I have yearned to own a pair of the silver feathered earrings she wears and sells at this bookstore. Josef Reiter, a Native jeweler, made these earrings especially for her and she calls them her lucky earrings, wearing them constantly.
Yesterday, forgetting it was her birthday, I scanned the Birchbark website which I haven't done in an extremely long time. I saw mention of the earrings once again and on a whim I e-mailed about the possibility of ordering a pair. I was caught by surprise at the fast reply to this e-mail, noting that they did have one pair in stock and I could order by mail if I called the bookstore. I believe in spiritual alignment and so I called and ordered this longed for jewelry. I am such a simpleton because I rationally know no earrings can be lucky unless we think them so or give them such meaning. And this is my answer: meaning is given not found. Purpose is what we decide it is going to be. I bought the earrings because I have wanted them for years and have decided lately not to deny my desires. For me the silver feathers are to be a symbol of taking myself more lightly and I am sure they were custom-made with care and love. That I ordered them on Ms. Erdrich's birthday is an unintended blessing.
What I want to weed out of my life is this tendency I have to envy other's lives. How I wish I could be the prolific writer Louise Erdrich is. Where do her stories and discipline come from? I see beauty and tragedy in her words just as I see beauty and sad eyes in her book jacket pictures. Why do some people appear to have extraordinary lives and why does my life at times seem so damn limited and simple? I have been told it is our choice how our lives unfold. Whether we choose our childhoods or our parents or the place we are born, we can choose our reactions, our thoughts and our emotions. Our foundation story may be given to us, but I want to believe we can change the storyline as we gain in years and awareness.
I have in part given myself such a narrow storyline. At least this is how it feels in my sixties. I wouldn't redo my living and traveling abroad and I wouldn't redo my love of both German, English and women's literature; and I wouldn't redo meeting Dan or becoming a mother or working with young people as well as the teaching of my community education women's studies classes. I think I would redo my education to go beyond teaching to become a child psychologist or even to study writing. But I've told myself time and time again that studying a craft can be impossible. Yet, I see writers who have published and have degrees in creative writing and often become teachers of writing while they write. This guessing game about what I might have done only serves to show me I would have lived my life as I have lived it. I gave my full heart to each stage and so I am asking myself why can't I give my full heart now to what is in front of me?
To accept my accomplishments for what they are, to accept my ordinary and at times extraordinary experiences, to accept me for being me. This is what I have been and seem to always be struggling with. I have to keep weeding, I have to keep feeling the dirt beneath my feet and I have to keep having faith that my words will come and my words will flow and I will write what I am gifted and meant to write.
(c) 2011
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