Hello everyone,
I have a dear friend who reminded me a few weeks ago that presence is not only in appreciating the beauty and awe available to us, believing we are paying homage when we snap a picture. Presence is in beholding the beauty and awe without taking photographs, letting what we are experiencing in the moment seep into our senses, our body, our hearts.
So, when over this past week, I’ve had three different encounters with a flock of mourning doves holding a line of peace and love for me in their perched positions, I’ve opted not to try to capture a photo and instead trust that the awe at their appearance at “just that right time” has etched itself into my memory box for me to draw upon when I need a reminder that life is miraculous, magical, and full of grace.
As we all enter the doorway to the last month of this year, the last month before we cross the threshold into the year that will mark a quarter century lived, I wish you abundant peacefulness and love that doves hold in their being-ness.
I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world – Sadako Sasaki
Namaste’
-Christine
The Creases Now Speak
Bian
It was several days after Mỹ spoke her words to Bian in the middle of the night.
Nine to be exact.
It was one of the longest stretches for Bian, not painting at the end of her day. As she stood in her master bedroom, looking out at Lake Michigan, debating entering her art studio, she kept hearing her mother’s words “my secret child. You gave me life he tried to take.”
Bian laughed to herself at the irony she was in such a debate to paint or not to paint on day nine. Painting always felt like a completion to her day. If she was lucky enough to time it, she could enter her studio as the sun was setting. As she would watch the sun lay its head down on the pillow tops of the waves, she would reflect on what the day had offered for growth while she also let the waves roll peacefully towards her in a promise of continuation. That tomorrow morning the sun would lift its head up and declare with such authoritative strength, “today is a new day.”
All the symbolism of lucky number nine. Completion. Continuous cycles of growth. Strength. Authority. Yet, nine wasn’t compelling her to cross the threshold into her studio.
Since the night her mother cried, Bian felt anything but complete. Nor has she felt strong. No longer feeling expert with her life.
She thought about contacting her younger brothers. Maybe Mỹ cried out something similar to them.
Bian looked over at the dresser whose blend of creamy white, pinkish brown, dark reddish brown American hard maple provides the beautiful resting place for the acacia wood frame her father made that holds the picture of Bian’s grandmother Linh, her mom, and her great aunt Cà. This picture has followed Binh everywhere.
Her new bedroom her father remodeled for her so that her room could become the nursery for each of her baby brothers. Her dorm room at the University of California – Berkeley when Bian moved from Vietnam to the U.S. The picture sat on the one tiny end table she had in her studio apartment when she was an intern at Mullen Advertising in Boston.
When she moved in with Andrew in his condo in Chicago, she still remembers how he took her hand and led her to the bookcase where he had cleared a shelf specifically for this picture. Bian had never elaborated to him why this picture meant so much. Andrew observed it sitting on her end table and knew it was sacred to her. Andrew was intuitive like that when it came to Bian. She often thought Andrew knew her heart better than she did.
Or at least he always knew how to help her sort through her mind’s confusion to get to the center of her soul’s knowing.
She knew if she asked Andrew what he thought her mom meant, he would have the wisdom she most needed. He would also have his way of wrapping her in his arms so that she would feel all was well, no matter the uncertainty.
Yet, something in her wasn’t ready to voice out loud that this might become her hardest lesson yet experiencing that nothing is meant to be held onto.
Not even her childhood as she knew it.
Bian looked at the sun setting on the horizon, remembering as a little girl peeking into her old room turned into her brother’s nursery. Her mother was holding baby Nhất, and her father was looking at her mother and the baby as if they were both so fragile they might break. Her mother was softly encouraging her father to hold out his arms, palms facing up, and as he did, she gently placed Bian’s baby brother into her father’s arms. Bian remembers hearing her mother say Đầu tiên của bạn. “Your first.”
Bian then saw her mother place her right palm on Bian’s father’s right cheek and with Mỹ’s other hand, she wiped tears from her father’s left cheek. Her father wept while he raised baby Nhất’s bundled body into his chest and began humming such comforting sounds Bian started to feel sleepy standing outside the doorway.
Bian always thought because Nhất’s name means “one” or “first” and because Nhất was the first boy in their family, her mom was referring to these things when she whispered those words to Bian’s father.
Something is nudging her gut, though. Something she can’t explain.
Or doesn’t want to.
Which may be why she is resisting talking to Andrew.
If she voices out loud what she is questioning, Andrew may offer to help her research if what she is thinking has any merit. She would want him to tell her “don’t be silly”, but because he knows her heart, he will gently take her hand and tell her “it will be ok and I am beside you” because he will know that what Bian is really wanting is to finally understand why Mỹ named her a secret.
More than the grip on her gut because of Mỹ’s recent words is the tightening on her heart that Bian has felt most of her teenage and adult life. There is a secret surrounding her conception, a feeling that Mỹ had to choose between a life she could have had and the life she did have. Bian never questioned her mom’s love; Bian knew she was wanted. No, that wasn’t the grip on her heart.
The grip was that Mỹ had sacrificed for Bian, just as Grandmother Linh had sacrificed for Mỹ, and Aunt Cà had sacrificed for her family. But what had that sacrifice cost each of them? Was Bian living her life in such a way she was making it matter what they had given up?
Was Bian living her life making it matter that her cousin Binh could no longer live his?
Bian stared at the picture that has followed her everywhere as her barometer. Am I choosing well?