On most days, I am my mother's daughter. She passed away five years ago, and when I sit down and think about it, I think one day the pain will go away, the grief will eventually disappear. But it doesn't. Waking up every morning with n empty, lonely feeling is as inevitable as nightfall.
My mother... she always mothered and smothered me. My relationship with her was so many things, ever evolving and ever influential. She was all-knowing, all-powerful, sometimes the enemy, always the nurturer, but she was never another woman with similar problems and experiences. She was a symbol. It wasn't until the day she died that I realized she was someone, she was a woman, she had pain and sorrow, regrets, loneliness, a soul, a spirit, a heart, she had feelings. She was like me, and I was like her. But I didn't know it at the time; I didn't know it while she was alive.
I've been thinking about her a lot, and I've been thinking about her death even more. Frame by frame, in slow motion, I'm remembering all of it, in the present tense, as if its happening today at an agonizing pace. I hear it, I feel it, and I'm experiencing it for the first time, I think. I didn't see these details before; I'm amazed at what my eyes witnessed years ago. If I had seen it or felt it this way when I was living it, I don't think I would have survived. They say the only way soldiers survive a war is to become unconscious. Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh says one must write the story you cannot bear to remember, let alone to record. Afterward, tell your story slowly. Tell it first for yourself. Second, so it will not fester within you. Third, so others will help you bear it. I don't know if I buy into the third reason. Those particular events and moments in my life that cluster together, within my inner territory, is what creates my personal journey, and whatever is fragmented, injured or suppressed within me, maybe shouldn't come out in self discovery. I mean, coming to know has consequences; it alters us. I'm not sure I'm ready to jump off that bridge or to go to the edge of that world where all the dragons live.
A friend challenged me to write my life story, my autobiography, in five minutes. She said it can't be done. I said it can.
"I am a woman." That was my opening line. See. Easy.
Most people think you can't write a whole lot in five minutes, but suddenly, you can't stop yourself and you're writing faster than you think you can. The words are random, haphazard, and they start to sound like a bad poem. You're writing things like "pomegranates, flaming skies, blue men, crucifixions, meadows and galaxies, the waxing moon..." it's exciting, it's irresistible, it's freeing and BAM... you're lunging to the edge, almost eye to eye with the dragon, and what do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?
Me, I put my pen down. "I don't want to do this anymore."
Whether I'm in slow motion or at high speed, I seem to end up in the same place. Pretty subtle, Universe! I suppose the process of healing and moving on is in the storytelling. Healing doesn't come from a focus on one's self, but from real-time acceptance. Pain is probably a requirement. I think suffering is optional.
On most days, I am my mother's daughter. On others, I'm hiding from dragons.
