I quoted a line from Anne Lamott's post yesterday over breakfast, a cheery positive statement her grandson makes in the mornings, "This might be the best day ever!" It's worth a try anyway. Attitude is everything or so they say. I mustered cheer and smiles for my family, gave long hugs and kisses
as I sent them out the door and then made my way to my 1980s yard sale find, a hifi stereo and record player with speakers as tall as I am, almost. Nora Jones fit my mood with her melancholy voice to which I can glide about the house dropping clothes in the washer and dishes in the sink all the while floating on the surface of my sea of depression.
A few trips through the house doing this and that and then I stepped into the kitchen as the sunlight came over the neighbors fence, hit the hardwood floor and bounced up into my face, blinding me, paralyzing me. I stood still for almost five minutes. I wept. I soaked up the warmth and the benefits of the light and I shed the sadness that has been sitting on my shoulders. "Hold on, hold on to this!" my brain screamed. I slipped my phone from my pocket and snapped a photo of myself, which is what I do with each and every moment that is meaningful to me. I've been doing that long before the selfie craze and camera phones, way back when I had to take my roll of 35mm or disc film to Kmart and wait a week to get them back. My photos are not always of myself, mostly they are of others, events, meals, emotions, people groups, places, animals, clouds, weather. See, I have a great fear of forgetting and moving forward unchanged.
I believe this fear originates from losing my mother when I was a very young woman. I search her out in the faces and voices of family, trying to remember her more clearly. I miss her and sometimes I can't find her no matter how hard I search my memory bank. But last week I found her in the touch of something that was hers. I noticed the curio cabinet shelves were not as I prefer them. She has a shelf there with a few of her personal affects. I suppose they were moved about during cleaning or the cabinet was bumped into, but they just weren't sitting right. I opened the glass door and reached into to make the changes and as I touched her glasses, her Bible, the handkerchief that covered her face at her baptism and a bell I'd given her as a gift on Mother's Day, I found her. I crumpled to the floor and remembered her well and long and completely. "Hello, Mother. I see you. I feel you. I smell you. I hear your voice. Oh, how I miss you. How I long to lay my head on your lap while you stroke my hair. Do you know I walk in your shoes lately with a teenage daughter of my own? Do you know my baby boy is all grown up and is a man on his own? I use your words when I guide them. I smile your smile when I listen to the account of their day. Oh, and today I combed your hair."
Today I hold on to this sunlit morning in my kitchen just as I hold to the fading and distant memories of my mother. On some difficult day or week or depression era in the future, I will have this photo to help me recall how good it feels to stand in the light. And if I search, intentionally seek it out, I will find the joy and hope and faith that I need to take the next step, face the next day, and the next, and the next.
as I sent them out the door and then made my way to my 1980s yard sale find, a hifi stereo and record player with speakers as tall as I am, almost. Nora Jones fit my mood with her melancholy voice to which I can glide about the house dropping clothes in the washer and dishes in the sink all the while floating on the surface of my sea of depression.
A few trips through the house doing this and that and then I stepped into the kitchen as the sunlight came over the neighbors fence, hit the hardwood floor and bounced up into my face, blinding me, paralyzing me. I stood still for almost five minutes. I wept. I soaked up the warmth and the benefits of the light and I shed the sadness that has been sitting on my shoulders. "Hold on, hold on to this!" my brain screamed. I slipped my phone from my pocket and snapped a photo of myself, which is what I do with each and every moment that is meaningful to me. I've been doing that long before the selfie craze and camera phones, way back when I had to take my roll of 35mm or disc film to Kmart and wait a week to get them back. My photos are not always of myself, mostly they are of others, events, meals, emotions, people groups, places, animals, clouds, weather. See, I have a great fear of forgetting and moving forward unchanged.I believe this fear originates from losing my mother when I was a very young woman. I search her out in the faces and voices of family, trying to remember her more clearly. I miss her and sometimes I can't find her no matter how hard I search my memory bank. But last week I found her in the touch of something that was hers. I noticed the curio cabinet shelves were not as I prefer them. She has a shelf there with a few of her personal affects. I suppose they were moved about during cleaning or the cabinet was bumped into, but they just weren't sitting right. I opened the glass door and reached into to make the changes and as I touched her glasses, her Bible, the handkerchief that covered her face at her baptism and a bell I'd given her as a gift on Mother's Day, I found her. I crumpled to the floor and remembered her well and long and completely. "Hello, Mother. I see you. I feel you. I smell you. I hear your voice. Oh, how I miss you. How I long to lay my head on your lap while you stroke my hair. Do you know I walk in your shoes lately with a teenage daughter of my own? Do you know my baby boy is all grown up and is a man on his own? I use your words when I guide them. I smile your smile when I listen to the account of their day. Oh, and today I combed your hair."
Today I hold on to this sunlit morning in my kitchen just as I hold to the fading and distant memories of my mother. On some difficult day or week or depression era in the future, I will have this photo to help me recall how good it feels to stand in the light. And if I search, intentionally seek it out, I will find the joy and hope and faith that I need to take the next step, face the next day, and the next, and the next.
