Be sure to visit Everyone's Story to read one of my newest peices called Come On.
Everyone's Story is a blog hosted by writer Elaine Stock. While you're there be sure to check out everyone else's story too . . . you'll be glad you did!
1. My breathtaking Father, you submerge this lump of dismal flesh in your joy,
2. You do not weary of showering favor on your creation.
3. You brought back life, you restored hope, you lifted the fog of guilt, reaching toward my sin to push it out of your sight.
4. You are the God who helps, the Lord who recovers,
5. The Savior of fresh starts and restorations.You celebrate yourself in me day after day.
6. You make your people laugh and sing; you give them reason and purpose.You relish our delight in you.
7. In the morning, I can't wait to hear your voice; in the evening, I rest immersed in your charge.
8. Your love, your truth are the roads I travel; your grace is the Main Street of my life.
9. Your faithfulness forces a response from my soul, and your righteousness moves me to my knees.
10. I will glory in you, my approachable God! In you alone will I compose the days of my life.
11. Most noble Lord, delight in your servant -- all sticky with grace and smudged with mercy.
By Julie Webb Kelley
At the end of October, every year,
She walks the same path--she has no fear.
She takes the first step, out of the door.
For months, she had waited, but not anymore.
She can't feel the breeze that blows too cold.
She can't see the gray sky is about to unfold.
The creatures on the path wander up and down.
I take a deep breath; she smoothes her long gown.
She lifts her chin, "I'm ready to go."
She takes my hand; I want to start slow.
Her steps, although hurried, are sure what they'll find:
Tonight will bring treats--of every kind.
Someday she'll face a path without my hand to hold,
On that day, I'll pray for her steps to be as bold.
And just like this October path on which we yearly roam,
I pray that every path she walks will lead her safely home.
by Julie Webb Kelley
Murder never goes as planned, so being gentle with yourself is a must. From the onset, you have to believe that when -- not if, when -- something goes wrong, it’s not your fault. That’s what Dugan told me. He’d say, it’s the nature of endings to be faulty. They’re restricting and suffocating. Endings are never tidy; they always interfere with the plan. Knowing this up front will help you when the bump at the end of road comes, because it will come.
If only my husband had died sooner I wouldn’t have to deal with all this fallout -- the police investigation, the endless questions and phone calls, the trips to the police station. The doctor said he would die of heart failure before the winter was gone. What did he know? Now these adolescent police officers refuse to leave a widow to her grieving.
“How did your husband get his medications, Mrs. Thanos?”
“I picked them up for him every month from the pharmacy, of course. He hasn’t been able to drive for years. His heart. It was bad. His bad heart is in your report, isn’t it?”
“Did you see him take his medications?”
“He took medications every day. The bottles used to sit on that table by his bed until you people took them away.”
“Did you see him take his digitalis on the day he died?”
“Of course I saw him take his medicine. He was always taking medicine. He had a bad heart, for crying out loud.”
“The autopsy showed that your husband had a high level of digitalis in his system. Did you know that?”
“Of course I know he was on digitalis. He had a bad heart. Heart failure. He was dying of heart failure.”
“Did you see him taking extra digitalis at any time on the day he died?”
The questions, the pounding, the probing of those people didn’t stop for weeks.
By the time winter came and went and his heart still hadn’t given up, his doctor labeled him with lung cancer. Dugan snarled at the diagnosis, walked out of the doctor’s office and never spoke to him again. When I helped him to bed that night, I saw death in his eyes for the first time, like a slow promise spreading across his insides. Life is murder, he said. I won’t be slaughtered like this. Not like this. You watch and see, I’m not going to let them tell me how to die. I’ll end this my own way.
“Was your husband in a lot of pain, ma’am?”
“Of course he was in pain. Every day he was in pain. He had lung cancer. He had a failing heart.”
“Did your husband mention to you that he wanted to end his life?”
“Of course he did. Every day he said, I want out of this hell. I hate this.”
“Did you know that he was planning to kill himself?”
“It’s the doctors who said he was dying. It was disease and cancer and medicine that killed him, not himself.”
Dugan’s birthday was in the spring. I insisted we have the kids and grandkids over. He never told them about the lung cancer, but he did smile that day. He hugged each one of them with a skintight strain that only I noticed. Dad looks tired, mom. How’s his heart? The kids asked all the right questions and listened to all the right answers. After they left, Dugan planned his death.
“You say he managed his own medications?”
“Yes, of course he did. Right up ‘til the day he died.”
“Did you ever help him read the labels? Or open the bottles? Or get him water? Or . . .”
“Of course I did. He was weak. He had a bad heart. He had lung cancer. I told you that.”
“Did you know your husband was taking too much of his digitalis medication?”
His plan was to take the digitalis all at once after I got home from the pharmacy with a full bottle. But instead, he doubled his dose every day until the headaches began, then he started getting scared. He hadn’t been able to see straight for several days, everything was blurry, he said. He cried one day when he saw blue halos around the bedroom light. It was angels come to take him home, he said. But he was wrong. It’s just a bump in the road, I told him, go easy on yourself. The angels wouldn’t come to take him home for another five days.
“Mrs. Thanos, you were aware that your husband wanted to die then?”
“Of course I was. His doctor was too. Why aren’t you questioning him?”
“You were the last one to see your husband alive, ma’am. Why did you wait to call an ambulance?”
“Who said I waited?”
“You did. In the police report you said, “I waited about an hour before calling the doctor’s office. He looked so peaceful in there. I wanted him to enjoy that feeling of peace.””
“It didn't feel like waiting. My husband didn’t want any heroic measures done by those ambulance people. He wanted to die. Just die. He was tired. He was sick and tired.”
The day before Dugan died, I said goodbye. He was bloated and hadn’t opened his eyes for hours. His skin was peeling and weeping. Coming out of the bathroom after my shower, I didn’t recognize him. This is not the man I married. This is not part of the plan. I lay in the bed next to him; every breath sounded like he was drowning. Tremors spanned his body. Worst of all, he hadn’t peed in three days. This is just a bump in the road, I whispered to him. After all these years together, his voice was stamped inside my brain. I heard him say, life is murder and murder never goes as planned.
“Did your husband talk about killing himself?”
“We’re old, officer. We’ve talked about dying every day for years.”
“Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Thanos. We’ll call if we have any more questions.”
"I have a funeral to plan, son. I'll be busy for a while.”
“One more thing. Did he ever talk to you about how he wanted to die?”
“If you are suggesting that my husband had a choice in death, his choices would have looked like this. First choice: heart failure. Second choice: lung cancer. He didn’t pick those two diseases as his preferred method of dying, officer. He didn’t want to die of heart failure. He didn’t want to die of lung cancer. Did he ever talk about how he wanted to die? Yes, he did. He wanted to die in his sleep, with me by his side, after spending a long and lazy day with our children and grandchildren. But that choice wasn’t on his list. He didn’t plan on disease and cancer, but life doesn’t go as planned. You’re probably too young to know that yet. But someday, when you’re older and life slams you with a murdering disease, I hope you’re brave enough to face it the way my Dugan did . . . he was determined that life’s murdering ritual of disease wouldn’t go as planned.”
by Julie Webb Kelley
We . . . you, me too.
From a handful of dust,
Shaken, molded,
Brought to pass,
As flesh and bone and breath.
But the dust alone, it lacked
A semblance of the Devine.
Leaning in close,
Releasing His Word,
Spilling His life,
He coated the dust with dignity.
Now, we . . . you, me too are
His only weakness.
by Julie Webb Kelley
(Click here if you missed Part 1.)
“I don’t know.” I mumble, wishing she’d let go of me.
“Sure you do. You can’t find the place of real love either can you? As big and vast as it’s supposed to be, this mighty love of God that sent Jesus and raised Him from the dead . . . you haven’t really experienced it either. We’ve both lived a lifetime and missed it. Admit it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then tell me something about it I don’t know.” The challenge sounds like a threat; I can feel my heart prickle with Goosebumps.
The parcels jumble around in my arm ready to topple, my feet are still struggling to find balance, and her clamping fingers are cutting my skin. The darkness is suddenly thicker, the dampness below closer. I try to explain, “I know it’s not . . . God’s love, I mean, it’s more than what you said. More than quantity and quality. I’m not exactly sure, but it’s more than might and power filled with positive character traits.”
Her hand twists in mine, suddenly releasing me, leaving me swaying and unsure.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She spits the question onto the ledge. I will it toward myself, coddling it for courage.
“God’s love is not just some massive depth of emotion, it’s more like the most absolute element of any proportion and . . . it’s something that is impossible for Him to withhold from us. He is love, so He can never set it aside in His dealings with mankind. He can never consider us in any other manner than through the veil of His love.” A ripple of thunder ruptures nearby, startling my thoughts. I can feel rain stepping in between us.
She looks at me, her gaze fraying my words. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. He maintains His love . . . He is persistent in advancing it toward us, compassionate about asserting it in our direction and diligent about converging it on us like . . . like an amiable thrust or a gentle bulldozer leaving us comfortably crushed. I know, because . . .”
“I wish I could believe you.” She is still . . . staring at me, just the wind blowing brand new baby rain drops onto her face.
She takes in a long breath, lifts her head to the dark and closes her eyes to the moon. I watch her spread her arms and surrender to the gloom below her.
“NO!” I shout too late, reach too late, recover my balance too late . . . the gifts flop around as my own arms fly open and my body stretches into a free fall. In a moment I choose to believe in the love of God. Succumbing to a love that cannot help but hold me, I allow the falling, the folding of myself, the quitting of all things carnal. I welcome the ultimate act of self-death entrusting my destination to His desire.
As the moist, ebony air rushes past me, I hear chains breaking; I tumble through the shattering and the shock, feeling the full weight of my lack. Yet, in the mist of this dreadful descent I feel the thick robe of fear sliding off my mind, the heavy cloak of fright slipping from my heart. The strange taste of freedom fills my mouth; the smell of joy engulfs my senses.
With a jolt I land onto the heap of God’s love. Still at last, I open my eyes. I see my gifts within arm’s reach and I marvel at their resilience. Then I see her . . . just beyond the heap, her frame face-up in the water, every part of her that couldn’t believe now floating and hollow. My mind blurs as tears choke my throat. At first I think it’s sadness overtaking me but then realize it cuts deeper, more like the final embrace of a friend.
The moon crawls from behind a thunder cloud spotlighting a distant portrait of my life. I see in the picture myself and my gifts caught in the intimate act of living and dying. A desperate wooziness bends my insides as I study myself on the canvas . . . the presence of life moving, the ghost of death hovering, the glory of God lifting and rising through both. The portrayal reaches out pure and transparent, causing my soul to wilt, my spirit to soar, and my heart to bow.
It compels me to commit one final act of abandon. But as I lean toward submission, I realize that I am coupled to this marvelous heap, wrapped in a reality of attachment that I had never considered before. I look down and notice two things of a completely different nature permanently joined . . . my entire being adhered to God’s love. As I turn it sticks to me. As I rise it lifts with me. As I move it covers me. I can never be separated from it. I realize I am in the perfect place to stop protesting, to give up my life, to relinquish my death. It seems right to release my final breath here, on this heap, secure in God’s love. As I lower myself back onto the heap, settling in to the warmth of it, retreating, accepting the cessation of life and allowing the inevitability of death . . . the heap shifts and, in my relentless surrender, peace displaces the final fragments of terror and I am lost in love, sweetly shattered . . . and for the first time ever I am fully alive.
The Beginning
by Julie Webb Kelley
"So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
-- Words of Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus
FULLY ALIVE
The building sits close to the water, immense and imposing over the slobbery river – a longtime magnet for a number of suicides. As I make my way toward the structure, I can’t help but wonder, is it possible that God had some other use for my life other than being weak with cancer and selfish with fear? I consider the possibility for the millionth time, and at the end of the prospect, for the millionth time, lurks the same silence.
Years ago I had accepted that my body was something I could no longer trust, with its aches and pains, its limitations and constrictions. But my mind turning on me, deserting me . . . now that had come as a complete surprise. My head still awash with nervous nightmares and depressing doubts, I climb the stairs to the overlook on the seventeenth floor. I push the hefty door aside and drag my feet across the pebbled rooftop. The tiny moon squatting in a corner of the black sky is something to savor. I breathe in the inviting darkness; it smells of reverence and qualm.
Leaning on the ledge straining to see the reeking serum below, I catch the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water. Maybe it looks like a button I can press to summon a celestial bellboy to help me; maybe it resembles a target longing to be reached. I’m not sure because that’s when I see her up on the ledge, stiff and angled as if the hurts of her days had filled her limbs leaving her shriveled and empty. I step closer, thankful now for the glint of moonlight allowing me to see the parcels weighing on her arms: the gifts God had given her that she was now ready to give back. A sharp wind cuts the curtain of pain between us. I see a slight tremble press her closer to the edge.
“Some days I too feel as if God has thrown me up in the air and caught me with a pair of scissors,” I tell her.
She doesn’t move, she doesn’t respond and I realize that she had already noticed me some time ago . . . perhaps coming across the path toward the building, perhaps mounting the stairs or drooling over the height of the evening. I feel compelled to offer something more than the pitiful display of words I had offered. But she speaks first.
“I think God knew.” She says.
I inch closer, waiting. The gifts she’s holding shift, yet her arms don’t move.
“Knew what?” I finally ask.
“He knew how much we would need love. How desperate we would be to get it, to win it, to handle it. And He knew how disappointing, how unfulfilled the love of another human would be. He knew it all along . . . that’s why . . .”
“What? That’s why what?” I urge her, craving the answer and forgetting her precarious position.
“That’s why He made His own love available . . . so that we would never have to feel as if we’ve settled for anything less than real love.”
“Yes.” I say. “You’re right. So why are you on the ledge?”
“Because it is our despair as well as our faith that makes us human.”
For the first time, she turns toward me, her anemic face studying me. There is something familiar in her eyes that reaches out to me, a beefy and frantic calm that can’t be concealed. It is then that I recognize the parcels in her arms – the reliability and creativity, the sensitivity, persistence and willingness – and I become vastly afraid of myself.
“Ordinary dangers are nothing compared to this. Nothing compared to being unable to wash the murkiness from your mind, nothing compared to fear dominating your body.” She turns back toward the night, stretching herself further into the shadows.
“You should come down,” my words trickle out as if from the spout of a lazy water fountain; I doubt if she heard them.
"Life is a possession.” She says.
“If life is a possession it belongs to God, not us.” I reach a hand toward her.
“Why should I come down?
The question stings, like a slap on the wrist. I let my arm flop to my side. Then like a draft moving horizontally under a door, a gust of understanding chills me from my feet to my head.
“Perhaps,” I pause, struggling to put the words in the right order. “Perhaps the same impetuosity that makes you want to end your life is what could enable you to love it all the more.”
Her feet shuffle and her head tilts toward me. “It seems unspeakable that I could go on.”
“I could go on with you.”
“Where?”
“The place you told me about. Where there’s real love . . . God’s love.”
She shakes her head, “It may be a real, but it’s not accessible. I’ve tried.”
I start to answer but am distracted by her graceful pivoting on the ledge.
“Take these. They belong to you.” She drops the gifts.
The parcels fall toward me. Instinct forces my reach to catch what I can, but I miss them all. They hit the ground one by one. I watch the rooftop interrupt gravity, watch the packages roll to a halt, topsy-turvy, dented and scraped. I stoop; gathering up the mess, then notice her hand is reaching toward me. I can taste relief on my tongue, and even with my arms full, I am eager to help her down. Shoving the packages into the crook of one arm, I touch her hand.
She grips mine. In a moment I am pulled up onto the ledge. I mutter a protest, but it’s too late. She leans in close, steadying me, inspecting me. I can see in the waxen outline of her eyes half my thoughts, half my talents, half my toxins.
“You want to be up here too, don’t you?” She asks, a sliver of a smile winking at me, her hand still embracing mine.
“No.”
“Then why did you come here tonight?”
---
To be continued . . .
by Julie Webb Kelley
Truth be told, the windows and doors aren’t really barred here, rather they’re heavy metal with tiny panes of Plexiglas which are impossible to break or to see through clearly. It doesn’t matter; I like the fuzzy windows and thick doors because they are always locked. No one can get in without permission – I feel safe from the complicated, demanding world. All of the fear that had forced and flushed me toward this place, finally kept at bay.
One of the keepers of the madwomen brought the first letter as the last of the night’s emotional chaos slipped from my mind. The torment of guilt, the torrent of conviction, and the terror of punishment had dilated the darkness of the last eleven hours, and I was relieved to see the first marks of daylight sneaking into the room. Sitting up on the worn cot, I felt sore all over, like a rash had spread throughout every muscle in my body
“Here.” I heard three knuckle raps on the heavy metal door then the envelope appeared beneath it.
Dear Client,
Yesterday, within the confines of this institution, your guilt was determined. There is a penalty to be paid for your transgressions; therefore, you have been sentenced to death. In order to preserve the power and dignity of the law here, it is my responsibility to ensure that the demand for justice is met for every client. Your execution will be completed by sunset.
Dr. Clemens
My head still chock full of hysteria, I fold the letter, turning my face to the wall where my guilt and sickness are posted for all to see. Seven notes displayed as evidence of my illness; there in my own handwriting on each paper is the proof of my guilt:
I’m not worth wanting.
I’m not worth noticing.
I’m not worth liking.
I’m not worth pursuing.
I’m not worth fighting for.
I’m not worth keeping.
I’m not worth loving.
My head sunk in shame, my tears wilt the letter, my guilt fully realized, my destiny now certain. Dr. Clemens is a good man, he will do what is right. I hear the shuffling footfalls of the keepers again. Another three knocks and another envelope under the door.
Dear Client,
It has come to my immediate attention that an option of mercy is possible. Since the indulgence of pure compassion would put the law of this institution in peril, something must be done to meet the demand for justice in order for the integrity of this institution to remain intact. This difficult dilemma is removed by the Atonement of Christ. Although you are undeserving, pardon for your crimes of illness can be granted the moment you trust in mercy.
This mercy can only be exercised where there is true guilt and only as far as you deserve punishment. No apologies or excuses can be accepted and you will forfeit your right to justice. You must be submissive to all the measures of conviction. These measures are repentance, restitution and reform, and are the only conditions upon which mercy can be shown.
If you are willing to submit to the mercy of this institution, please reply.
Dr. Clemens
Although my voice and heart art strangled with grief, I am able to write back.
Dear Dr. Clemens,
I am willing to honor the measures of conviction. I am wrong. I accept the atonement. I am willing to embrace repentance, restitution, and reform. I am guilty. I choose mercy.
Client
Within minutes, the heavy metal door of my room flies open. “Let’s go,” one of the keepers steps into the room, shoving a small cardboard box at me. “Collect your things.”
I take the box, pulling down the notes and placing each one inside. My guilt and shame are all I had brought with me.
“Where are we going?” I ask. “Was mercy granted? Did it happen? Is it over yet?”
“It’s just begun. Follow me.”
I stumble behind the heels of the keeper down a stretching, gray hallway that never ends, my distress growing greater, not less. It seems days go by before we reach another heavy door. The keeper swings it wide with only a small punch of his hand, as if the whole thing were made of paper. I step outside the door, letting the blistering sun strike me across the face. This movement from my little world into this larger one is met with much dread and despair. My insides are bitter and bewildered. If mercy means leaving my place of safety, I’m not sure I want it.
“Is it too late to change my mind?” I ask the keeper. But he doesn’t hear; his lack of attention lands like another laceration on my skin.
“Here’s the address,” the keeper shoves a paper at me and I hear the metal door clang shut , and the lock ripple into place. I feel like the future is moving through the present and into the past faster than I can keep up. I have made my choice for mercy, so I stager ahead into life, tripping over my own terror, heading toward the address on the paper.
What will become of me? The question grows roots into the ground of my mental existence as I move forward, following the path toward the address on the paper. Eventually, fear sets in, as I worry that this place I am going will not be as beautiful as my private room was, not as secure. I inch forward, inwardly saying goodbye to my previous shelter. I am empty. I am hungry and tired. Maybe justice would have been the better choice. Suddenly the death sentence I passed up sounds inviting, something to anticipate, like awaiting the kiss of a prince to awaken me. I allow the vision to carry me forward.
By the time I reach the address, I am sure I’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. I check and recheck the number and the street name. The dwelling before me is expansive and exhausts me to look at. The reality of it is inconceivable at first. As I climb the steps to the front door, the extensive details overwhelm me, the complex elegance withers my senses. A fragrance of tenderness fills the air. There’s an envelope sticking out of the mailbox. I pull it out; it’s addressed to “Client”.
Dear Client,
Welcome to the Clemency Mansion. This will be your new home. Unpack your belongings and rest here. Your confession was adequate and full, deep and complete, thus, mercy has been granted once and for all. If you are marveling at the constitution of this residence, please remember that, just as your confession of guilt was all or nothing, mercy is all or nothing -- it cannot be offered in portions or pieces. There is no such thing as a little mercy.
Dr. Clemens
The door of the mansion widens and welcomes me. I swivel and twirl in awe from room to room for hours, the generosity, the favor, the relief marking my heart with peace. I choose a room to call my own and am eager to decorate it. I consider the notes I brought inside the cardboard box . . . it’s all I have. I finger the papers one at a time, finally pulling one out, distracted by the altered message, still in my own handwriting. In haste I yank each one from the box, reading:
I am worth wanting.
I am worth noticing.
I am worth liking.
I am worth pursuing.
I am worth fighting for.
I am worth keeping.
I am worth loving.
My body can no longer contain the sadness it had been carrying and misery melts in waves down my face, releasing the madness, the disorder, the moods. I lie down on the bed, exhausted and worn, permeated with joy, unsure how I missed the moment – the exact time -- when divine action and human response merged, the point where I became an object of mercy.
Sit. Knit. Cope.
An Essay by Julie Webb Kelley
Last year, I received a diagnosis of breast cancer. I had no idea what I was in for. No one does. No one tells you that it isn’t the diagnosis that gets to you; realizing the big ‘C’ has his grip around your throat is now a fact of life that is out of your hands. What is in your hands---or rather on your needles---is learning how to live with it.
The first several weeks, you’re recuperating from shock, bad dreams and late-night pity parties. Your world becomes very small and self-absorbed; you’re living inside the Fun House at the carnival. There are walls, but they’re moving. There are windows, but you can’t see out. There’s a fluorescent bulb glaring on your new world screaming “pay attention, this is serious”. You can’t help but look back to catch a glimpse of your old life . . . just as it blacks out and goes limp. Your body, perhaps painful and still plotting against you, trumps all. You must find a way through this; you must survive.
You will cope. You will learn skills to cope. I had to learn a skill to cope. I had to practice coping. I picked up a pair of knitting needles. I fondled a ball of wool. There was no end to the coping; I needed to know that I was still valuable, that I could still contribute to this crazy world, that there were people out there who were glad that I was coping . . . even if that meant knitting.
In response to all that coping, I got a sweet demonstration of one of life’s best blessings: giving is better than receiving. I practiced the knit stitch on size ten needles with a ball of chunky weight. My youngest daughter hovered nearby, precious and sacred, observing as my coping produced an ordinary scarf. She soon had it around her neck.
I tussled through a knit two, purl two pattern with a hank of fisherman’s wool, the tasty oatmeal color pleasing my senses. My oldest daughter came home for a visit from college, claiming the patterned scarf and I understood, for the first time, what it must have felt for her to think that I might be at home, lifeless and meek letting ‘C’s grip press the final ebb and flow of life from my body.
I worked my first cable stitch with a medium weight colorway of dark blues, rich oranges and bright reds. It made me think of the forest floor on an autumn afternoon; that familiar place I’d run off to after school too long ago. It felt good having an excuse to let my thoughts reverse time for a while each day. I had chosen a vivid yellow cable needle and relished each moment of slipping the next three stitches, passing the needle to the back, knitting the next three stitches from my needles and at last knitting the gorgeous colorway off of the cable needle. It sounds tedious now; I’ve discovered that most knitters hate using a cable needle, too time consuming. But handling the daybreak-bright cable needle in the middle of every row was the articulation of symmetry that my soul craved. That scarf was the perfect Christmas gift for my sister.
Through the strains and turmoil of doctor visits and blood tests, I needed something more. I found just the right pattern: an entrelac stole made from the most lavish yarn I had yet to invest in. I decided to pour my being into this project, purchasing not only the luxurious wool but new needles that I had spent costly time lusting after. The splurge freshened my spirit. I had learned the knit stitch, the purl stitch and the cable stitch, I was ready. I signed up for the class. I was the only student.
“You want to make the entrelac stole, huh? How long you been knitting,”
“A few months,” I wonder now if I should have lied---“ a few years” may have softened her heart.
“You ever knitted entrelac before?”
“No.”
“You’ve got your own book with the pattern, don’t you?”
I pulled out the book, opening it to the right page.
The women, whose skin was the color of Christmas peanut brittle, began slapping papers around and tossing hanks of yarn into bins, “I’m the last one here. It’s six o’clock, time to close the shop. Start casting on, I’ll be right with you.”
As I began to cast on, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was having a rotten day or maybe, like me, it had been an especially tough year.
When she came back to the table, she brought her finished entrelac stole and whooshed it out across the table, the tilted squares bending perfectly into each other. My breath tripped over my awe.
“That’s beautiful,” I said, tentatively outlining the edges of a few of the diamond shapes with my finger.
“I made it for me. It’s all mine.” That matter settled, she rubbed an open palm over the surface of her stole. “ Who you making yours for?”
I shrugged, looking up at her as she pulled it around herself in an audacious display of visceral confidence.
“It’s too much work for a daughter-in-law. Make it for yourself or . . . maybe your own daughter. But no one else.”
That’s when it hit me. So far I had given away almost everything I had made. Of course I could make something for myself. Something elegant and superb. That stole was her piece of splendor in this world, a glaring suspension of cellophane wrapping her intentions in crystal-clear passion. And it was ok. All I had wanted was a way to cope. All I had needed was to learn to knit, ascertaining comfort from each stitch and every project. But maybe, real coping has less to do with the motions and more to do with the motivation.
“You ready to get started?” She interrupted my thoughts.
I nodded.
“Let me help you make something worth keeping.”
Everybody writes . . . people write grocery lists, scribble in yearbooks, and type text messages. It's a common mode of communication that has the potential to lose its uniqueness, its ability to truly impress us. As I was exploring a completely different idea in an email yesterday, I wrote, "Maybe a part of that is having an increased interest and affection
for the complexity of the process."
Although I was referring to something else, as that sentence sat around in my cerebrum for a few hours, I realized that it holds the truth of what I absolutely love about writing. The best part of writing for me is that the more I write the more I am enamored and impressed by the process.
There seems to be a deepening respect for the method . . . the way that thoughts transform into ideas, and ideas move forward into words, and words cluster into meaning, and meaning pops off the page to nail down the feelings within another human heart.
To me is seems the writing process is a circus act: the juggling of words, the balancing of phrases on huge, slippery balls, the jumping of ideas through bright hoops. Can't you picture the head of the writer in the mouth of the reader . . . the rancid breath, yellow teeth and dripping saliva all poised and ready to misinterpret the meaning of her perfectly placed pronouncement? Although most writing seems to be written and delivered by a person with a big red nose in a tiny car, surely that's not always the case . . . because everyone at the circus plays an important role.
Maybe I'm the only writer who feels like the hairy woman on display at the freak show . . . you know the kind -- the one you're scared to look at for too long because of the sign on the wall behind her unshaven arm that reads: Do Not Feed!
But even people who write only epitaphs or yard sale signs are using the process of writing. Writing is an experience --- a fluctuation of words set in impressions, of adages swelling with meaning, of colloquy advancing to message. But never in a precise or expected manner . . . it refuses to happen the same way twice. Every time a writer plucks a phrase from the garden of expression, it leads to a journey that requires the writer to trust herself. To trust that it's the right idea even when the words won't come. To trust that the deeper she goes into the quandaries the perfect idiom will surface. To trust that the process is really a whole train of experiences that have the potential to launch her further along the continuum of the raging current.
Willing, always willing, to be in the process of writing means having to tolerate the ambiguity of not knowing the outcome, not seeing the destination, and not being sure of the next step. Maybe this tolerating ambiguity, although difficult to experience at times, is the essence of writing and is what keeps it so exciting, so intense, so stimulating. And although the people who write the sale signs for the laundry soap at the Piggly Wiggly may not be able to fully crest the waves of the ebb and flow of the writing process . . . all that really means is that their arms are not as hairy as mine.
Julie
Sharing some everyday elements from my life today. Think I'll start with what's right in front of me. My Bible, my journal, my glasses and my pens -- a few things I just can't do without!
"When I'm writing, I know I'm doing the thing I was born to do." Logan Pearsall Smith
One would think that I could have come up with a quote like this on my own. Ummm.
