Off in the distance, I hear cries. I no longer hear my name, just a din of doom. My fears escalate. The light increases imperceptibly as I struggle to make sense of the situation. I want to know. I need to know. But I don’t know.
Hopeless, I sit down, filling the ring of light with the girth of my form. The light drops to a shadow. It’s dim brilliance all but gone. I jump up as I feel if the light goes I will too. My actions reignite the glow, stronger than before. I discover my control.
It was dark. I stood encircled by a dim light and could see nothing beyond the rays splayed before my feet. I couldn’t see anything else, but I could hear movements surrounding me. Skitters, twitters, unrecognizable as a whole, yet oddly familiar echoes in my ears. My fear kept my feet solidly planted. Among the steady hum a sound became more clear. What!? What is that?
It’s my name. I hear my name! But it’s not directed toward me.
My childhood home was a green Victorian wood frame three flat that had lots of crevices for exploration. One of my favorite places therein was the attic.
It was unfinished. Dark, gray, dusty with relics littering the rafters. But in the front was a small room. My uncle Paul, who was only six years older than me, had built a place where he could escape. I would escape there too. (I’m can’t recall if he sanctioned my escape…)
This room was light with unpainted plaster walls. The whiteness designated a stark contrast to the darkness that surrounded it. This room had one window just under the pitched roof peak. The window was only inches from the floor. When I you stood up in front of it, I filled the whole thing with my body. It instilled such fear in me. I would tremble as I looked in wonder at the beautiful perspective that lain before me, unlike what I saw or felt in any other window below.
I looked down on the maple tree that prevented growth beneath it, and the awning that sheltered those entrants and exitists from the rains and snows. I was mightier than they in that moment.
The world felt miles away.
I also knew the danger.
With the window open, head stuck out, I imagined the wind sucking me out as I plunged to the ground. Would the awning shelter and save me as it provided protection from the elements? Would I be able to grasp a branch of the maple canopy to pull me to safety?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t care. My fears didn’t keep me from perching at the glass. The reward was worth the risk. I approach life in a similar manner.
See it all: the beauty, the danger. They are partners. The view from the top is surreal and the possibility of fall very real. This is life. This is my perspective.
What is your perspective? How do you view from the top?
Our tiny nuclear family didn’t feel tiny because my mom and dad had lots of siblings. Growing up with an uncle six years older and an aunt nine years older than me felt like I had siblings – one’s that didn’t live in my space. It was the best of both worlds in my mind. I had the run of my house and the doting of aunts and uncles. Loneliness existed but was just a flight of stairs away from being abated. I long for those days.
Those days of a close knit community of people who look like me. the ones who developed a me who will never depart.
I live a thousand miles away from those oompa loompas and carry fond memories of the celebrations and struggles that we call family life.
My tiny family grew to include a son. A son I had for thirty-three years, but last year my tiny family shrunk. My father first walked to the pearly gates, and my only child parachuted to the sky a short, few months later. Decimated.
It’s just my mom and I now. We are separated by half a continent, but we hand onto each other in a way like never before – a swimmer and buoy – a blessing for the other.
I’ve changed a lot in the last year; death can do that. Mortality exists in my mind in a way it never had before, but cherished memories live on. Videos have a place that can now not be replaced. Photos works of art. Lives created exist each day and each exist forever in the mind. Meaningfulness has changed. I am changed.
Two months of summer gone in a flash. I blinked and my To Do List still lives.
No deadlines.
Well none until the last week that is. So I still have a couple things hanging out to do. I had intended to spread them out through the weeks. I had intended to go the SeaWorld often. I had intended to go the Busch Gardens. I had intended to have a lush garden. I had intended…
What is it about intentions that hurt so much?
Unfulfilled plans and wishes leave a hunger, a starving dream that gnaws at the stomach, and ulcer than can only be cured by conversion from intention to action, by the food of completion.
Oh, there have been valid reasons for not meeting my summer goals (a severely sprained ankle for the most part), but that does not abate the worm of intention from boring into my brain. Even worse are the worms of neglect that drill holes in my relationships with others.
How do I rectify my drags? How do I rise above the abyss that hovers over the sea of despair that drowns my self-esteem, my worthiness?
I must soar to another land – the land of renewal. To meet the intention renewed. It’s never too late to change a miss to a hit. It’s never too late to redirect a fail to a success. It may be that I missed the timing, but I choose whether to miss the event or the opportunity to recreate one.
Has your summer met your expectations? It’s not too late to make it the best one yet.
Back to school today. I’m a high school English Language Arts teacher. No students today as we start with a week of administrative and planning tasks. Teaching is a mixed bag of highs and lows occurring weekly, daily, even minutely. Ask any teacher they will barrage you with wins and woes.
I never know what to expect but must anticipate it, whatever that it is or might be.
I am a newbie in the K-12 arena. I discovered this profession – which chose me not I it – fit well with my need for variety, my need for routine, and the guiding deadlines. Each day is a series of performances, judged by developing minds and the tanks they are filled with. I fear it. I thrive in it. I grow helping others grow.
A gardener of the mind. Just like the gardener needs the correct tools and conditions to elicit blooms, so does the teacher need to create the environment conducive to promote growth. It’s not easy for either.
I’m still learning how to do this because the details of these unremarkable days have the foundation to develop remarkable lives. Lives that I am unlikely to ever see to fruition. Lives built on a hope.
What unremarkable moments bring meaning to your life?
Reading this has a cost. It costs you your time. I don’t want the price to be high, I try to keep it short (and hopefully of some thought-provoking meaning). It’s easier sometimes to just brush off something whether than to give it the time it requires to grow from an interaction with it.
I love learning. For me the cost is minimal in the learning of something because it’s such a pleasure to engage in the growth of mind. My mind is always active – sometimes more than I would like. Spilling Marbles is all about expanding the mind. Thinking about random or specific things. It is focused on growth – mine and yours.
What rings up the bill for me is putting something into action, especially in the physical activity arena. For example, I will spend hours planning the week ahead and implement (maybe) half of it. My brain fires on creating the route, but my body groans at the walk.
I have taken on the goal of becoming a plant lover and gardener. My history with plants has been one of undertaker. I buy one and start planning its burial with weeks (not to be confused with putting it in the ground, they go in the landfill and I run out to get a replacement. My theory has always been why buy cut flowers that live a few days when I can buy a plant that lasts for a few weeks for the same or less cash. I’ve even has some last for months.
So I’ve decided why not learn to nurture the wild and invite them to be a part of the family instead of planning for their wake.
This has been easier said than done. There is so much to know. It’s not as simple as giving light and water – who knew – how much is enough, too much? Or feeding them (whoda thought they needed food), when (and how) to give them a trim, keeping them from becoming tiny mites dinner, and how moving them causes them stress.
Stress! Now that’s what this relaxing event has given me. I’ve undertaken a task for life, not death. Any pointers?
Spilling Marbles 