The Empty Page

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I sit with writers on Tuesday afternoons at Mayo Clinic. We weave our stories from our words. We hope to find our voices. To find ourselves–but it is not an easy task. I think of Terry Tempest Williams and her lovely book, When Women Were Birds. The author’s mother, the matriarch of a large Mormon clan in northern Utah, told her daughter, “I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won’t look at them until after I’m gone.” Bereft and lonely as she faced her mother’s death, Williams sought out these journals as a lifelife or a way she hoped to ground herself. But as she flipped through the pages of the first, and then the second and third, she found only blank pages. Then she dug through them hurriedly, and much to her shock three shelves of her mother’s journals were completely empty.

The blank page becomes the surprising image she holds for her mother, and Williams begins to write her way forward finding the stories that will fill these empty pages and help her understand not only her mother but also her own life and voice.

Each week I ask my writers to write themselves forward with the hope of discovering their own voice. I explain that my way of seeing myself is often through metaphors that dance around being a storywriter and a storycatcher.  I long to be a tiger lily in full bloom because I want to stretch, grow, learn and write my story as fully as I can in the last decades of my life. I ask what metaphors or images frame their lives now. In the past? In the future? They embrace this search and easily find their words.

Susan sees herself as “a sopping wet sponge.” She asks, “Is the water that drips from the sponge soapy? Clear? Or dirty? And for that matter am I overflowing with ideas? Excitement?  Or am I filled with dread and doom? Do I have too much to do? Have I taken on too many things?” With the onslaught of work, emails, and social media directing our lives, we can engage with her metaphor. It reminds us that we are squeezed and that what pours from us can be creative and exciting like an Andy Warhol painting —or we may be so drained our energy pours out as dark, grimy bits of sludge like the splatters on a dark Pollock canvas.

“Why are we tormented by our critical voice?” asks Bev. Why do we often seize our negative metaphors to define us, and can we choose a better way of viewing the self? Jackie and I are partners on this day, and I ask her if she struggles with being an introvert. She nods, but this is what she wrote and what she shares with us–

I Am the Quiet in the Desert Before Sunrise

By Jacklyn Anderson

I am an introvert on the far-left side of the scale with extroverts being on the right. On the outside I appear calm and cool. Inside my head, my thoughts are swirling around as I over think everything. When I go out for dinner, I have to look at everything on the menu, and then after fifteen minutes or more I eventually make a decision.

That quiet hour before sunrise is often the coldest time of the day. The knowledge that the sun will appear and warm up the air brings a hopeful spirit to the beginning of a new day. Those words describe me, quiet, slow to warm up, and hopeful.

I desperately believe that I have much to give. Waiting inside me is something awakening.  First it will come in pale blues, then purple, orange and finally it will blast out in a bold fire of red burning clouds on the horizon of a new day.

I am still in that early morning stage, and even if I am past middle age, my best years are not behind me. I am only moving forward toward another dawn, because each day is another chance to start over, to make a different choice, to pick something new off the menu and try it for the first time.

What I love about Jackie’s piece is that she introduces us to herself at a dinner table where she struggles with her menu choices as she probably struggles with being an introvert. She ends this piece in the same spot, but we have come to understand the beauty of her metaphor as well as the beauty of Jackie being an introvert.

Children as Teachers

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The Christmas season began with the traditional sleep-over for my granddaughter.  Macy embraces traditions and decorating the tree is one of her favorites. We debated how to string the lights. Macy likes the colored lights. I like the clear ones. We ended up using both and placing way too many of them on our tree.

When we finished decorating, we hid the extra Santa ornaments all over the house. I marveled at how clever this eight-year-old has become in hiding them—under cushions and inside coat pockets! When her dad texted to say he would be late to pick her up, we squealed with delight. We agreed to play Weird but True.  She beat me soundly. She actually knew that butterflies taste food with their feet.

When her dad tapped on the door, Macy was busy making a list. “We have to plan ahead, Gigi. Last year our gingerbread house collapsed. Check this one out on Amazon. It is prefab!” She pointed to my computer screen. The post-it note she crunched into my hand had the make, the model, even the number!  “My intention is to build you the best gingerbread house ever!”

“Intention?” I asked. “Where did you get that word?”

“From you!” Macy laughed as she hugged me farewell.  Intentions. Lists. Plans. Wasn’t this the year I was determined to ditch Christmas lists. Wasn’t I working on being in the moment? Anyway, I ordered the prefab gingerbread house.

Often Christmas feels like I have watched a feel-good Hallmark movie, but I have not lived it. With mile-long lists, the holidays slip into a blur of delightful—but rushed—moments. This year I consciously set about cutting back on intentions, lists, and “must-do’s and choosing activities that would give me joy. I wanted to live these moments. It proved to be a challenge.

I held space for events like three-year-old Harper’s Christmas program and Macy’s Christmas recital. I didn’t buy many presents this year, but I tried to choose them more thoughtfully and be mindful of why I was choosing them. But in the weeks before Christmas, I still proved to be more Martha than Mary.  I cleaned. I scrubbed. I baked coffee cake from my mom’s recipe and iced dozens of sugar cookies. (I ate a good number of them, too!) I relented and made endless lists in preparation for Christmas brunch with cheesy eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls that my youngest son claims is his favorite meal of the year—although he no longer eats bacon.

On Christmas morning my family arrived, and there was a flurry of opening gifts, surprises, and the experience was laced with mimosas, coffee cake, and followed with the celebrated cheesy eggs. But this year was different. I did ignore the dishes, and I let everyone find their own coffee or tea. After breakfast I hid behind my Christmas tree with the overload of twinkling lights. There for nearly an hour I simply held my son’s newborn, Evy, and she graciously rewarded me with smiles and baby coos. I was able to reflect on all the wonder of Christmas. A child. A tree. The day slipped by too quickly, but I felt there.

Nearing dinner time, Macy took my hand and guided me to the dining room table where she and her three-year-old cousins Harper and Steven had been laboring over my present. When I entered, Harper shouted, “Surprise, Gigi! We made you a beautiful gingerbread house!” Steven clapped joyfully. Perhaps in the back of our minds was the collapsed gingerbread house from last year. This memory made the children’s success—even with a prefab house—all the more magical.

Late Christmas night, after I cleaned the sticky candy bits out of the carpet and swept the gum drops from the floor, I found my gingerbread house sitting on the kitchen bar. I paused again to reflect. While I will never fulfill all of my intentions or plans, I need them—just as Macy did, but most importantly I realized I need to pause, reflect and seize magical moments before they slip away. I am still learning how to find this balance—but the children are such wonderful teachers.

To all of you, now and in the coming New Year, I wish you intentions, wonderful plans, moments of magic, and, of course, children as teachers.

Giving Invisible Gifts

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I am digging through the Christmas boxes when I see an image that is still etched in my brain. The boy. The hair shorn close to his head. The green tee shirt that held a German phrase I did not understand. How he sat like Rodin’s Thinker at his desk. How he died near Christmas and how that moment ripped my high school apart.

The week before he died, we had been reading Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince in class. The story centers on a pilot who landed in the Sahara Desert. Having a mechanical problem, he sets about repairing his plane when the odd, childlike Little Prince appears.  Initially the Little Prince is quite put off by the pilot, who is completely wrapped up in his airplane repairs. But slowly the Little Prince uses his magical stories to befriend the pilot and teach him important lessons about life. During one discussion about the book, I asked my students what they had learned.

“The fox came up from his hole!” all eyes turned toward the voice coming from the fourth row. Lucas. “That fox teaches us about trust and friendship.  Powerful stuff . . . but the best part is the fox’s gift. He gave the Little Prince a quote, a thought.” Then Lucas paused knowing his silence would give this quote the emphasis it needed. “What is essential is Invisible to the eye,” he said. “This quote is cool—and I like the idea of giving free gifts, too!” Lucas joked. Then sitting sidesaddle at his desk, Lucas poised himself like Rodin’s Thinker. He held our complete attention. “The invisible is the best stuff . . . goodness, truth, friendship, stuff like that . . . and how often do we stop and realize that?” There was another moment of silence as we pondered. “Just so cool,” he added. Then Lucas turned and leaned forward on his desk, leaning into a future that should have been. That was my last vivid memory of him.

One week later, Lucas was shot in the head while doing his job– trying to stop a thief from walking out of a Walmart with a television. That was nearly two decades ago. I still feel the hurt. It surfaces as I dust off the Christmas boxes and prepare to hunt for the ornaments and the Santas I hide throughout the house. I also think of my dear mom who died in March. It will be hard to face my first Christmas without her.  Lucas. Mom. I think I feel their presence, and I marvel at this. The power of the invisible.

But my reverie is interrupted by my favorite eight-year-old, Macy. “Gigi, let’s hide the Santas first!” Her joy is contagious, and I nod. Then my granddaughter pauses pensively. “But what about Santa?” She eyes me seriously. “My friend Madison says he is not real.”

“He’s real,” I answer. I do not miss a beat. “He may be invisible—but he is there.” She pops open the box with our Santas and gives me the stink-eye look that she has mastered. “Think about it,” I suggest. “What really matters is invisible.” She plops down on the floor examining a miniature Santa she has pulled from the box. She is quiet for a long time.

“I sort of see what you mean. Santa is like the magical stuff we can’t see.”

“Yes. Maybe love? Maybe the spirit of giving? Special things we can’t see—but we feel,” I say.

“Oh, like Grandma Betty,” Macy says as if it all makes sense now. Then she jumps up and wraps her arms around me. Again, I feel a presence. Again, I marvel at this. The power of the invisible. Then I return a hug to this beautiful child who will always be my teacher, and a sliver of light slips into me—the invisible is truly the greatest gift we can give.