I am a visual-spatial person. I think in images, make notes with drawings and diagrams and doodle all over everything from lesson plans to recipes. I used to carry a sketchbook to meetings and workshops because I listened more attentively when I focused on a drawing. This picture is from a sketchbook I had when Dr. Phil said one must confront one's fears before one can conquer them. Clearly, I had issues with spiders and snakes so I set about drawing them. No, it didn't cure me, but I did learn a lot about their anatomy which made them less mysterious and therefore slightly less intimidating. Slightly.
A couple of years ago I had a stroke which rendered my right hand useless for several days. Dear friends stayed with me in the hospital and put my hair up and even plucked my eyebrows. (Funny thing, vanity.) After a while I regained the use of my hand and life returned to normal. However, I've lost some of the fine motor ability necessary for good (okay, legible) penmanship and drawing. Gone are the days of detailed sketches. I can still do the big gestural strokes for making banners, but can't even read my own handwriting. Considering that my stroke could have been so much worse and having experienced a small taste of what losing a limb is about, I am not complaining.
I believe Marilyn Monroe is credited with saying that sometimes good things fall apart so that better things can fall together. That is exactly what has happened to me. Drawing was a creative outlet for me and after I accepted that I wasn't going to be doing much of it anymore, I set about looking for other forms of expression. I fell into an ancestry project which lead to blogging and that has made all the difference. Through my writing exercises and blogging topics, I have been forced to confront things that have nagged at me for years. The photos of ancestors and mom's stories about those mysterious relatives bear striking resemblances to people and situations in my own life, and that has gotten my brain working on a whole new level. I can look at those photos as well as others and write my responses to the memories, emotions and ideas that they evoke. I now have a stronger sense of who I am and what I want from this life for myself and my family. And you know, since I have gotten to this place I find that I am so much less critical of others. Who am I to assume I know what is going on with someone else when they probably haven't got a clue, either?
But still, there are memories and images that keep revisiting like they need some attention. I like to think of them as old lessons waiting to be learned. My mother gets extremely annoyed with me about this as she is a proponent of getting over it and moving on. However, I secretly suspect that in her quiet moments she is doing the same thing I am...looking to put some things to rest. Lately, I am visited by an image from when I was nine years old. It was summer and my parents had been divorced about a year when a woman about mom's age moved into a house three doors down from us. She bought the house that had a huge concrete patio and above-ground pool...and she had three daughters. My friends Lara and Dot and I were so excited to have some new girls in the neighborhood. We also looked forward to skating on that patio and swimming in that pool! But (there's always a but,) my mom nixed our plans right away. One of her closest friends worked with this woman and had heard all sorts of things about how horrible she was to her ex-husbands and how focused she was on finding the next one. She shared all this with my mom as well as how her three girls were left unattended many nights so she could go to the bar up the road from us. The same bar my dad dipped into regularly. So we were forbidden to associate with the orphan ragamuffins and endured the seemingly endless horror of watching them play on that awesome skating rink of a patio that had so recently been close to becoming community property.
This memory would be poignant enough on its own. It contains lessons about being judgemental and making assumptions. But what happened next has made it monumental and continues to affect me today. One afternoon, my brother and I were playing in the front yard when mom came outside and called us to the porch. I'll never forget it. She said quite simply, "Your dad married Miss Becky today." I don't think there was any discussion about it. It wasn't long before dad moved in down the street and we started to see him drive by with Miss Becky and the girls. I have searched for words to describe that feeling but there just aren't any. My daddy was driving by with a carload of kids I was not even allowed to play with.
Now, my mother is a wonderful human being and time has affected my memory. But that image is burned into my mind so I know it happened. I have been chewing on it quite a bit lately so have taken to task finding out why and learning the lesson. The why is that the oldest girl, Michelle, is a couple of years older than me and has always been the one I was closest to. She is currently in the process of fulfilling a lifelong dream and is very close to getting there. I see her updates almost daily and carry her in prayer because it is an amazing project that she has worked very hard on. The lessons are several. While my mother and her friend were passing judgement on Becky and the girls, they did so based on things Becky herself admitted to. Over the years I learned those things were true. But, as awful as she may have been to the first two husbands, she treated my daddy like a king. They are married to this day. And those girls had structure. They had chores and activities that kept them busy the whole time their mother was away. Their house was spotless and they knew how to cook. I got quite close to them all as we became a family and call them all sisters now even though Michelle is the only one I really talk to anymore. Before dad changed jobs and they moved to Kentucky, I spend many afternoons skating on that patio and got to swim a time or two. Becky never called us "steps" or treated me or Pat any differently than her own children. When we spent weekends or summer vacations with them, we all had chores and were all accountable if we dropped the ball. We all got the same number of gifts for birthdays and Christmas and everyone's good report card was celebrated. What's the lesson in that? Don't judge a book by its cover? Things aren't always what they seem? Let go and let God?
As a mother, I've had to let my kids go visit with their dads and extended families. I have sent them off for weeks at a time just like my mother had to do then. That takes a boat load of faith. That's having to let go and try to breathe in and out until they get back. It's hard. But at least I knew my kids had good step-parents. Their other moms were/are good to my kids. My mom had an awful image of Becky and to some extent my dad, but she had to let that go to let us go. She learned in time that Becky was very good to us but those first few months must have been awful. (On a side note, mom was rewarded in that she she met Jack, who is the best step-dad ever. I refer to him as my dad...he was there for everything!)
Another lesson, and maybe the bigger one, is that just because someone does a really crappy job in one aspect of their life, it doesn't mean they aren't successful in others. We can go lots of places with that one. I am terrible at managing money, but I can write up a grant proposal for hundreds of thousands of dollars and explain how to effectively use it. Becky was terrible at maintaining working relationships with her exes, but she ran a household with 5 kids like clockwork while working full-time and getting her husband to quit drinking. We all have our talents and weaknesses.
I know that I will continue to be visited by images from my past and am so glad that I have learned what to do with them. The memories may be painful at times, but their lessons are life-affirming and I am no longer afraid to confront them. I can't really draw them anymore, but I can draw from them and pass them along. That is what we are here for after all. Learning life's lessons to help each other find our way.
No comments:
Post a Comment