Here’s a portion of what I went with for my messy pages #22:
If I knew it would be received with love I would write a letter to my mother.
I have been talking about my relationships with women in the last few days and how I think I’m starting to open up – perhaps – to developing better relationships with the women in my life and why I have fear around them, thanks to my relationship with my mother.
If I thought that she wouldn’t write me off, talk down to me, or somehow belittle me I would write her a letter. I think there must be some love left. Maybe? I’m not sure where I would start. It feels like any place I picked would be a place that would make her feel sad or maybe guilty or angry. There have been decades of hurt. There has been half a decade of silence. How would I even begin something so daunting? I think I’d want to explain my side. I don’t know if I want to know hers. Maybe she really isn’t a nice person. There is that possibility.
However the meditation cards I pulled as part of the Wild Women Expeditions team meeting were refuge, grief, surrender, forgiveness, and instinct. Those are powerful words that require some reflection. What does it mean for me?
I have work to do. Feelings to let out, investigate, explore, delve deeper than I’ve allowed myself to in a while. And then maybe I could practice writing letters to my mother. Create a collection of them to send or not send.
If I knew it would be beautiful in the end, I would write the story about the peach trees. I would write about how he would throw the pits in the back garden, long since having given up the dream of having an orchard. How it was a habit, a superstitious habit from a man who allowed himself few superstitions and fewer habits, to just chuck those peach pits in the back garden.
I would write about the day his wife came in and interrupted him while he was playing solitaire and watching the Nightly Business Report, and told him, ‘Hey! There are peach trees starting to grow from those pits!
I would write about how he went out and saw the sticks, not sticks in the mud this time, but sturdy little saplings, eight of them, poking up out the ground. And he started to feel a bit of hope growing in his heart. He watered the little trees and collected bricks to put around them. Who knows why he put bricks around each one, but he did.
I would write about how, a few weeks later, his wife would come into the room, once again interrupting the Nightly Business Report to say ‘Hey! The peach trees have blossoms!’
And at the end of the summer, his first, small harvest, came into fullness. Not too many peaches, but peaches from his own trees, nonetheless. I would write about those eight trees and how they finally, after so many failed attempts at other trees, other orchards – cherry, apricot, plum – how they finally grew.
I would write about the day, years later, when he filled two paper grocery bags full of ripe peaches from his trees and brought their juicy, soft sweetness inside and placed the bags on the wooden table in the kitchen, waiting for his grandchildren to come and eat every last one.
If I knew I had enough time I would write If I knew it would be beautiful in the end I would write If I knew it would be received with love I would write.
If I knew it would be received with love I would write about the radical amazement of living and studying and working with 20 Anglican sisters this summer at an Anglilcan Convent. It all started on July the 3rd, 2015 when I entered the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine. I entered the front door of the Convent and the small dark haired receptionist with purple hair and a filmy white gypsie blouse and wide legged black stripped trousers led me to Temptation Walk, the long hallway lined with books,CD’s, Cards with photographs of white and red roses…..
Chris I LOVE the messy theme. It is 1:37 am and I am sitting in my living room surrounded by floors covered with diatomaceous earth, wine glasses, books and bills scattered everywhere asking myself what is going on with me that I have let this place dissolove into black chaos. Is it the email from South Africa today from an old lover telling me he still loves me even though he betrayed me last time I heard from him. I have many ” Is it ” questions and it is such a wonderful gift to get your Messy Beautiful Pages and give myself a big “darling you are alright…just on the verge of new creations”. Chris the spirit of Firefly Creative Writing is Joy….Joyous Joy. thank you
Here’s a portion of what I went with for my messy pages #22:
If I knew it would be received with love I would write a letter to my mother.
I have been talking about my relationships with women in the last few days and how I think I’m starting to open up – perhaps – to developing better relationships with the women in my life and why I have fear around them, thanks to my relationship with my mother.
If I thought that she wouldn’t write me off, talk down to me, or somehow belittle me I would write her a letter. I think there must be some love left. Maybe? I’m not sure where I would start. It feels like any place I picked would be a place that would make her feel sad or maybe guilty or angry. There have been decades of hurt. There has been half a decade of silence. How would I even begin something so daunting? I think I’d want to explain my side. I don’t know if I want to know hers. Maybe she really isn’t a nice person. There is that possibility.
However the meditation cards I pulled as part of the Wild Women Expeditions team meeting were refuge, grief, surrender, forgiveness, and instinct. Those are powerful words that require some reflection. What does it mean for me?
I have work to do. Feelings to let out, investigate, explore, delve deeper than I’ve allowed myself to in a while. And then maybe I could practice writing letters to my mother. Create a collection of them to send or not send.
If I knew it would be beautiful in the end, I would write the story about the peach trees. I would write about how he would throw the pits in the back garden, long since having given up the dream of having an orchard. How it was a habit, a superstitious habit from a man who allowed himself few superstitions and fewer habits, to just chuck those peach pits in the back garden.
I would write about the day his wife came in and interrupted him while he was playing solitaire and watching the Nightly Business Report, and told him, ‘Hey! There are peach trees starting to grow from those pits!
I would write about how he went out and saw the sticks, not sticks in the mud this time, but sturdy little saplings, eight of them, poking up out the ground. And he started to feel a bit of hope growing in his heart. He watered the little trees and collected bricks to put around them. Who knows why he put bricks around each one, but he did.
I would write about how, a few weeks later, his wife would come into the room, once again interrupting the Nightly Business Report to say ‘Hey! The peach trees have blossoms!’
And at the end of the summer, his first, small harvest, came into fullness. Not too many peaches, but peaches from his own trees, nonetheless. I would write about those eight trees and how they finally, after so many failed attempts at other trees, other orchards – cherry, apricot, plum – how they finally grew.
I would write about the day, years later, when he filled two paper grocery bags full of ripe peaches from his trees and brought their juicy, soft sweetness inside and placed the bags on the wooden table in the kitchen, waiting for his grandchildren to come and eat every last one.
If I knew I had enough time I would write If I knew it would be beautiful in the end I would write If I knew it would be received with love I would write.
If I knew it would be received with love I would write about the radical amazement of living and studying and working with 20 Anglican sisters this summer at an Anglilcan Convent. It all started on July the 3rd, 2015 when I entered the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine. I entered the front door of the Convent and the small dark haired receptionist with purple hair and a filmy white gypsie blouse and wide legged black stripped trousers led me to Temptation Walk, the long hallway lined with books,CD’s, Cards with photographs of white and red roses…..
Chris I LOVE the messy theme. It is 1:37 am and I am sitting in my living room surrounded by floors covered with diatomaceous earth, wine glasses, books and bills scattered everywhere asking myself what is going on with me that I have let this place dissolove into black chaos. Is it the email from South Africa today from an old lover telling me he still loves me even though he betrayed me last time I heard from him. I have many ” Is it ” questions and it is such a wonderful gift to get your Messy Beautiful Pages and give myself a big “darling you are alright…just on the verge of new creations”. Chris the spirit of Firefly Creative Writing is Joy….Joyous Joy. thank you