I have always loved words. My fondest memory of fifth grade is the weekly story we had to write using all of our vocabulary words. Attempting to link “skyscraper” and “guinea pig” into a coherent story challenged my ten-year-old imagination. Each week provided another puzzle of words to untangle.
One of the reasons I write as an adult is to untangle the puzzle of what I feel or think. It’s often only in the act of writing that I’m able to discover the truth.
Even in ordinary conversation, it’s satisfying to find the right word (or words) to describe a feeling or an experience. There is a certain relief that comes from the naming.
This past week, I haven’t found the sweet relief of words. Not on the page, not even in prayer.
As I approach another transition in life, I’ve been holding back my feelings like a dam holding back a river. Maybe the words are stuck back there, too.
Cue the Music
She looks up at her son up onstage, the Gerber baby with bright blue eyes, the plum cheeks, and that wide-mouthed smile that takes over his whole face. But when she looks again he’s no longer a baby, eighteen years have passed and he’s taller than she is, the baby cheeks are long gone and he’s looking handsome and ready to take on the world in his navy blue suit and tie.
The mother is watching her third child, her only son, prepare to graduate from high school. This is one of the final Senior events of the school year.
I observe the scene like a spectator, as if I’m not the mother in the scene, as if I’m watching a film.
That mother sure is going through it, I think, but my emotions seem somewhat distant, submerged.
The film has switched to slow-motion, with a montage of their life flicking from one scene to the next:
Clip 1
He is a few months old. She is ready to leave the house but whenever she makes eye contact, he smiles at her, all cheeks and drool and adoration. She looks away and he drops his smile, she turns back quickly and he grins immediately, just for her.
Clip 2
He is five. She goes to kiss his cheek before she leaves but he stops her and checks for lipstick. His inspection reveals: no lipstick. The kiss is permitted.
Clip 3
He is ten. He’s found a friend. A boy to connect with, finally, after being surrounded by three sisters. But even in the midst of friends and fun, he comes over to her, leans his head again hers. They smile together and close their eyes. Someone snaps a photo.
Clip 4
He is 13. She’s in pain. He notices and walks over to her and immediately begins to pray, “Dear God, please help Mommy feel better. Right now, please take away her pain.”
Clip 5
He is 17. Behind him a car is flipped upside down but somehow he is walking toward her, upset but unhurt.
Clip 6
He is 18. It’s late at night and he’s sitting across from her, talking about the current problems with his friends. She knows he could be anywhere else, but he’s not.
The montage ends.
The Feelings Behind the Dam
It is the graduation of our son, but it’s not only the graduation of our son.
It’s watching his two older sisters wrestle their way forward, working to find their identity in the wider world.
It’s starting the timer on the last four years of having a child at home (and living in the sober reality of just how short four years really is).
It’s recognizing that the lives I’ve willingly tethered my life to for two decades are all leaving, and I’m left wondering: what’s next?
Words, After All
So, I guess I found a few words after all.
A slight twist of the valve.
A little pressure released.
From the Sketchbook
Favorite Finds
Book
This past week the world lost Leslie Bustard. I didn’t know Leslie personally but along with her husband Ned, she was a force in the world for beauty, creativity, and Christ.
Just a few short months ago, she published a book of poetry. It’s called The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living.
Podcast
On The Habit with Jonathan Rogers, Ashlee Gadd talks about the importance of making space for creativity as a mother, even if it means leaving some dirty dishes in the sink. She has a new book out that is currently on my hold list at the library called Create Anyway: The Joy of Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood.
Words to Consider
“Wordless prayer…is humble, simple, lowly, prayer in which we experience our total dependence on God and our awareness that we are in God. Wordless prayer is not an effort to ‘get anywhere’, for we are already there (in God’s presence). It is just that we are not sufficiently conscious of being there."
-William Shannon (I found the quote in the the book Invitation to Silence and Solitude by Ruth Haley Barton)
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee