Getting There
A few years ago, in a pebble-textured blue sketchbook I bought at the local indie bookstore, I practiced using a new set of colored pencils. I drew simple images, like daffodils on a rolling green hill, abstract angles and curves framed in rainbow dots that quickly wore the newly-sharpened tips of said pencils down to nubbins. A few turns on the pencil sharpener I inherited, the one that Dad had mounted on the wall near the door of his downstairs workshop at the family home, and I was back at it, shading in the distinct outlines of a tulip’s red petals and alternating between yellow and black for the bee making its way across the page.
Somewhere, though, my attention span (never really long to begin with) turned in another direction and I began to write, in short phrases and appropriate single words, the story of my journey from fear to compassion for the people who had made life difficult for me. It took the shape of a spiral. Hard to read (you have to keep turning the book in a circle and it made me nauseous after a few go-arounds) but no other physical arrangement of the words would have captured such an important and necessary outpouring. In the center of it all, I had glued a small circular piece of mirror that needs no further explanation.
I was rearranging the shelves in my studio a few months ago when I found this book—hadn’t gone looking for it—and sat for a moment in silent respect for the depth and breadth of these two pages. My fingers traced the edges of the tiny mirror and smudged it a bit as I recalled the years of abuse and bullying at the hands of a family member, the men who raped me, the therapists who reassured and released me from their guidance when the time was right, the husband who saved my life—literally—twice, and the days when sweet peace wasn’t just within reach but sat comfortably in my lap, no plans to go anywhere. None of these experiences moved in a one-way linear direction. My feet have doubled back on lessons I needed to learn more than once (usually in front of a couple of people), carrying me forward into healing and heartache in equal measure. And isn’t that how it goes? Just when you think you’ve got something sorted out, a sudden yank of the rug beneath your feet and there you are, staring upward from your vantage point on the floor, humbled and blank slate once again. Rinse and repeat say life’s instructions on the back of the bottle. I get up, towel off and head into my day. Like Dad used to say, “self-revelation is not for the squeamish.”
Neither saint nor victim, I considered what the spaces in between the carefully selected words and phrases held in their invisible silence. What choices had I made that moved me from “shame” and “righteous anger” to “sympathy for the enemy” and “necessary separation”? I recall a stretch of indifference that gave me a break from all the work of trying to understand the mind of a bully, the logic of an abuser. I came to understand denial as a valuable coping skill until I found my more confident feet and could stand sure-footed once again. And in an undefined, unchronicled moment, I introduced myself to the practice of compassion and forgiveness, finding a path to liberation and release. Some days it’s easier to get there than others, but I keep trying. I have forgiven the one who intimidated and controlled with fear and fists, the ones who took violently without asking, wondering what their lives must have been like to select, from all the tools in their toolkits, the most hurtful and abhorrent options. Even on my worst days I can still do better than that.
Two pages of graphite and a circle of mirror can certainly pack in a lot.
The story isn’t finished yet, and I don’t mean just because I’m still alive and typing these words. It’s good and healthy to look over your shoulder now and then to see where you’ve been before strapping on the backpack and heading into the next leg of the trip. I think about the current State of Affairs, with so much distance between us and our better selves right now, who we were created to become and what we’ve settled for as a human species. I wonder what my own personal experience of compassion and forgiveness could look like on a larger scale, if such a thing is even possible. The folks up the road with their “***k Biden” signs and Putin orchestrating chaos and horror more than five thousand miles from my spot here on the couch…how can I possibly touch that in any meaningful way? I don’t have an answer for that yet but compassion says to keep looking for it, so I do.
I have no idea what shape that part of the story will take, but one thing’s for sure—I’m gonna need a few more blank books and a heck of a lot more pencils.
