It was quite a sight, quite a first morning view. I hoped it was a love note from God, telling me that He sees. He cares. He has it all in His control.
I'd slept well, which was a blessing. Also, I'd not set an alarm. It was 7:34, and I'd slept through until the sleep just wore itself off, with no alarm. I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to awaken to silence and a white sky punctuated with a red bird.
Things are not unraveling the way I would choose. I can't really discuss it.
Sometimes your heart feels as though it has been ripped out and twisted, and you can't breathe very well, and tears just spill down your face and you choke on the snot from your nose. Other times you feel pretty much okay. You match the socks, fold the underwear, take the dogs out to wet on the ice in the bitter wind, steep another cup of tea.
I ventured down to the basement today, to try to work on the boxes that still sprawl there a year and a half after the movers unceremoniously schlepped them in. I found a box of treasures from my childhood, things I'd painstakingly packed up long years ago when I first moved out of my natal home. I left a lot of things at my parents' house, so I know that the things I kept were precious to me, gifts with memories, trinkets that had once brought delight to my girlish imagination.
It is a curse to have an active and vivid imagination. When life takes twists you had never reckoned on, and you start to imagine what might happen next, it can be a real curse. (This is an aside.)
Two of my old music boxes are broken. I should not write that here. I want to throw them away and never remember them again. The sense that I'm losing my past is excruciating, the memories running out between my fingers, although they are not really memories, just feelings, strong emotions that well up in response to the sight of things long forgotten. Broken music boxes that used to sing, before I had my children, before, even, I had met my husband, things from so long ago that nobody could share the memory, which, once forgotten by me, will be lost forever. But now that I wrote this, it will be that much more difficult to let go and forget. So is this sin?
Upstairs is safer. Mostly. It's set up and functional. The basement is a hazard to my mental health, I think, a symbol of the wreck of memories that I was unable to keep nicely.
And life marches forward with all of its uncertainties and heartbreaks and hopefulnesses.
A cardinal is hopeful, don't you think? Even if he is cold.
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?
Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Luke 12:6-7 (NIV)
3 comments:
Hey Mama,
I think you could probably find someone to fix the old music boxes, although I don't know what the nature of the damage is.
I love you so very much.
Yes, a cardinal is very hopeful, I think. We have one who must live nearby because I often see him in the evergreen tree in back. When light snow dusts the branches, it is so lovely to look at his bright red body contrasted with the white snow and green pine needles. Almost as lovely a sight as the autumn leaves (but not quite).
It's so strange but I didn't remember until now that I had a music box collection when I was young. I haven't thought of it in years and I don't know what happened to it.
I hope your memories will transform themselves into something good. "When they walk through the Valley of Weeping, it will become a place of refreshing springs. The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings."
Thank you. Thank you.
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;
Isaiah 35:1
It will be okay.
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