|
Monthly Archives: February 2012
I grumble a lot. Complaints come out of my mouth way to much but the amount of griping that goes on in my head is ridiculous. Completely out of control, a disease eating away at gratitude. The worst part is I hardly even notice. I pick the moments of gratitude and I gloss over all the complaints that form a steady tide inside.
Photography is always a project for me and so a new one. “Grumblings.” I don’t want to just take some nice pictures. I want the act of photographing to be transformative. So I will stop and take the pictures of the things I grumble about. I will be honest and know it will be shameful. Shameful in the quantity and also in the what, who, when, where, why… but I need to do this. Because when I stop and make myself see what is always before my eyes wide shut, then it’s obvious.
The beauty will be obvious. The complaints seen for what they are, ridiculous. I don’t think it will be a cure. I only hope that this project is an awakening, a call not to just guard my thoughts but begin to change them. And so I begin…
SICK
I hate it when my family is sick. Everyone is miserable and I am worried, the house is a mess and our schedule falls to pieces. My plans are paused.
So I take a photo. My sick boy asleep on the couch. I am stopped by beauty. Overcome. This big boy that never stops for a minute has layed here and cuddled me, I have taken care of him and later he makes me a thank you note. And look at those eyelashes, that head of hair. How many moms stroke bare scalps and pray that someday all they will have to nurse their son through is the flu.
So there it is, grumbling #1. I make known the ugliness inside so He can whisper the way to truth and gratitude.
This project will live here and at #grumblings on Instagram.
I sent him those words, him trudging in snow, willing to serve, hoping to fly. I found them in a bookstore, etched into smooth metal, sent it to slip between sacred sheets of paper. Those words they have echoed on, and on… through sickness and health, separation and reunion, good times and bad, four kids and almost ten years. Those words, the faith to get through the fear.
I hold onto words, pull them in and construct a crude life raft. Words to hold me in a sea of life. When the fear comes heavy I read the ancient book, the wise men and when all goes well I forget. We all do, we human race, we forget…
The old year rushes out a flurry of celebration, remembrance and gratitude. The new year dawns a magic of possibility and we are swept up in the promise of blank pages. And then the calendar turns, the sacred days run one into the next – holidays, school days, sick days, work days, even resting. I see each one breaking forth new and feel the same distraction and exhaustion creeping in. I applaud the sunset and try to whisper a prayer of thanks before slipping into bed, dark hugging the hard worked bodies to sleep.
I need to remember. I need to gather it all in and focus on just what is important. Not marching forward blindly but dare I say it? seizing as much of each day as I can possibly hold. So I will write these words. White etched into dark, piercing through and the flakes fall down like snow… I will write these words and remember till I turn the page. 30 days of this one wisdom handed down.
Then the next joyful page will come, blank and inviting all we can and must do. Squares laid out to hold our plans. I whisper a prayer as I sketch them in, please bless us with these days. On this new page I will determined write another scripture, a spoken word or song. And 30 days I will cling to it and march by it’s rhythm when I am too tired to look up.
(For my personal photography/life project “30 Days of Wisdom” I will be copying down a quote, verse or lyric that is meaningful to me on the chalkboard in my kitchen each month. I will create an image from it and share it on this blog. My hope is that this process will impact my daily life. The project will live here. Feel free to pass it on, pin it, etc… This is my quote for March, starting a bit early since it’s my first one.)
“Never, Never, Never, Give Up.” – Winston Churchill (Image by me. Words by Winston.)
His my first. The first one we came up with. The first one bestowed upon us. The first one who pressed through and was laid into my arms.
He appeared and was ready for everything the world might throw at him. He seemed not to need me except for sustenance. Father was his obsession and I didn’t quite know what to do with him. Still don’t and yet I understand him like the sun and moon and stars. That little ball of fire grown tall now and growing closer to a man. Where does the time go? They warned me and warn me still. It goes, it goes, it goes…
He was never one to come often or quick and I did not hold as tightly then, back when I was younger, more restless, unaware of life’s scheme’s and tricks. Still he makes me paper chains and hand carved gifts. What happened to the building of last year? Content then to dabble in scraps. Now he is on to buildings and grandiose ideas, frustrated at his lacking and I fear growing afraid to try. How to give him the skills and still leave the room to grow?
Some days, some minutes, he drives me to the brink. Why are the letters so hard and the chair so slippery? Sitting quiet an impossibility. I ask him to hold the pen in his hand, not to touch, to think as I do and focus… And I don’t treasure who he is enough.
Who he is. The little man who runs into life, away from the center into the fringe, the wild parts. Will he rip my heart out? The little boy who flings himself head long into all that is dirt and wild, light and life. At home in a tangle of plants, charging up mountainsides, with wind and tide, finding all God’s creatures.
He brings me these things I do not even wish to hold, would never even see. He brings them and I recognize all that I need. His hands full of life itself, my one desire. Him doing at a quarter my age things I would never conceive.
I clutch at goals, manuals, steering wheels. I hope I have not failed too badly. He has never been one for hugging, but he brings me treasures. What I did not know I must have. Red hair and dirty hands, my uncontainable love.
We will be ten years this summer and the day of hearts and love is now upon us. I can’t untangle it all. I can’t get through his birthday anymore without crying out a mess all over the kitchen. My man’s birthday, the day we made him, when his short life began. And now St. Valentine’s Day, the day before I found out he was living inside of me. A seed newly planted and all seemed love and hope and our union flowed out easy into children and fruitfullness. Our bodies young and dreams still fresh. Falling easy into sheets and running fast even on the cliff’s edge.
And where are we now? Groping about in the dusk for the hand we used to hold sure? Still his smell is like home and and I know every inch of his arms, strong shoulders holding us up. I grasp the three, boy’s bodies strong as spring plants, holding onto what we’ve made, what we’ve been given. Our glue and still they threaten to swallow us up, to make us into only mom and dad, without a trace of us… Don’t look at me like that, don’t pretend you don’t know. If you say you have walked through years with a lover by your side without once knowing these days, these thoughts – I don’t believe you. I don’t.
But everyone maintains perfection and so I hide my grief, my passion, convinced it’s an indulgence, an inconvenience. (til it spills out ugly) Selfish at best, shameful at worst. Do you know this? What lies deep in your heart, a longing, a wound? Why don’t we offer it up in beauty? I regret the days gone by of simple color in the sun. I draw back when I see the shadows lengthen and fret about what will come. Until I hear other’s stories, flip through artist’s photos… challenges met, beauty unfolded, black and white prints, powerful images. The fight, the argument of dark and light holds more power, more passion than any breezy sunny day. Chiraoscuro, the play of light and dark – art school term, 90’s song – a way of life?
If you truly have not yet met the storm, I do not wish it on you, but it will come… and I tremble to think of other’s battle’s so much more fierce than mine. As I sink into shades of black and white, the children they paint my days, splashed violently with life that even color can’t contain. Until finally I am surprised by slivers of sunshine peeking through the grey, slanting through window panes and onto white sheets. Glimmers of fire smoothing onto skin holding on for dear life, prayers whispered for peace. I see the light rise and I realize the grey is not dusk but dawn, eternal dawn and the Son has come into our shameful midst. He has come to knit our hearts back together and I wish I could silence my tongue and surrender my heart and lay down my body once and for all.
I can’t, but He has.
And so I hold the hand of my friend, my lover. Never to let go. I drink in the sweet smell of boyhood alive in our home. I cry and laugh and try not to screw it all up and cry and laugh some more when I do. And I thank God for bleeding hands and broken bodies and how He knows all my pain and foolishness and will not abandon me to it.
I thank God for Love. And I thank one man for the black and white script of forever and I do.
I pull out old photos and revel in the rich beauty of their age. Faded layers tell the story truly.
« Older posts
|
.jpg)
