Empty Cereal Box

Views From Inside an Adoptee

July 20, 2006

My Yellow Fabric

It could be that God has not absconded but spread,
as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread,
to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle,
so powerful in a new way,
that we can only feel blindly of its hem.
--Annie Dillard

Yesterday my color coded anxiety alert was on orange. I'm back to yellow today. I didn't mean to hang it out there in the wind for all to read...er, yes I did. Sometimes I feel so lost and abandoned. Sometimes I see that a person has to get lost before she can find herself, if even for a little while. I was just scared, that's all. I pushed it down and I'm managing again now. The only thing I could do was to cry out to the universe to show me what to do.

It seems that whenever I feel the most anxious, the most lost and depressed, if I can just manage to ride it out, I also feel the most open and filled with potential. How is that? My K is fine and well in Guatemala and assures me that everything will be alright. Funny, that's what I always used to say to her. She will be flying home in six more days. Every day I hear from her is a day when my anxiety alert stays on yellow.

The deal is that when I have no other choice but to let go, and I do let go, there's a release, a welcome sense of freedom that doesn't come often enough. That's when I let the universe do what it will and in the whirlwind I land somehow clearer and higher than before. Then it all settles and after awhile another crescendo of high anxiety and depression hits and the whole thing begins again. It's the way some of us grow, apparently. For me it's the result of seeing with my heart and feeling with my brain. Groping in the dark for answers that are only whispered at best.

This morning I lay in bed after getting R off to work with a stack of books and journals beside me. The weather was cold and gray outside the curtainless windows. Tom Buddah took a day off from his painting our home today. Propped up on pillows, I stared at the newly painted white walls for awhile and enjoyed the way they look with the orange shellac woodwork. Butterscotch light from the pole lamp (snatched from the curb across the street on trash day) next to the bed fell over my journal. The only furniture in the room is the dresser (Angelina across the street said she would like to buy it) and the bed. I sipped yerba mate and read and wrote. For hours. Pouring it out all over the page. More and more. I never knew I had that much to write. Some of it even actually made sense.

Among the books I'm reading is (and doing the practice work in) Heather Sellers' marvelous Page After Page. I love her style and her gentle nudges toward picking up a pen and falling in love, passionately, with writing. She says to write honestly and from the heart, and that is all any writer needs to know. So I do. And I stumble and wonder how to draw a line between private and public, journal and blog. I mean, there are just some things you don't hang out there in the wind for the whole world to read, aren't there? There are so many terrific women bloggers out there with such incredible talent and whom I enjoy so very much. They are like the cream on the milk. They rise to the top and melt your heart. My aspiration is to find a way to write like that. I think that's about the best thing I can do.


4 Comments:

Blogger Andromeda Jazmon said...

Yes, I am with you on that. I just love reading women bloggers. They give me aspirations too! :)

I can't write with pen and paper anymore... I always hate what it looks like after a day or so. I don't know why... I used to try to keep a journal and just not let myself re-read it very often. Now I love the screen and keyboard. I think it is because of the ease of editing and spell check... And I love getting responses from people who see what I wrote a new light. I will have to look for that book you mentioned.

I love what Annie Dillard has to say about God too. Thanks!

21.7.06  
Blogger Umbilicly Challenged said...

By any chance, and I know this sounds silly, but are you a water sign? <3 You are so deep and sensitive, like I am and I am Cancer ;)

22.7.06  
Blogger Umbilicly Challenged said...

Not at all dismissing adoption for the intense feelings - I KNOW that is what it is for me....spearation from my mother...but other than that (if there is ANYthing other than that sometimes...'i don't know).I like astrology. This is why I ask.

22.7.06  
Blogger Marie said...

Cloudscome-I love the feel of a journal in my lap, curled up in bed, writing with a fountain pen, bleeding out all my thoughts on the page. But like you I like the screen and keyboard, too. You just can't get a community going in a private journal. There's no substitute for either, so I like both! Thanks for your visit!

Umbilicly Challenged-I have a water moom-in Scorpio. But my sun is in Leo. It's not easy being adopted AND sensitive AND missing your mother. I'm right there with you on that one.

22.7.06  

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