Dear Readers,
I am grateful once again for this shared time with you.
At the point you are reading this, I offer you this sunshine wink and wishes that the remaining days of February provide you with a downstream flow as life brings much your way. For life tends to bring much in its currents, and sometimes it can seem like there are rapids or a pending waterfall that we want to avoid capsizing in or careening off into the gushing water basin at the end of the fall.
I remember one time preparing to go river rafting in West Virginia and a colleague who was an experienced rafter telling me about eddies, and how there are these undertow swirls that one can fall into, and the key is not to panic. Let the undertow pull you under and ride it out and eventually it will pop you out into calm waters. I remember being sooooooooo grateful an eddy and I didn’t meet! I didn’t have confidence that I could trust the river flow more than my belief I would need to control the waters swirling around me. I didn’t trust the innateness within me to know how to kick my feet in partnership with the direction the water was guiding me through.
Innateness we all have to navigate the currents without kicking too hard or paddling upstream.
I like what nature is whispering. Flow downstream. The sun is beckoning, follow me.
Namaste’
The Creases Now Speak
Patricia
A couple of weeks before Patricia had had her stroke, she felt compelled to go to her old hope chest, the one she hadn’t opened in twenty-three years. Not since she had tucked away William’s letter to her.
The letter she had found under her windshield wiper in the grocery store parking lot.
The one that contained the last words she heard William say.
The one she first tucked away in the top drawer of her dresser, pulling it out periodically to catch a whiff of William’s aftershave, like she always smelled when they ran into each other at the grocery store.
The letter that she initially thought was placed on her path to teach her regret.
Patricia’s wisdom revealed the finality it held was preparing her for learning how to let go.
For if she hadn’t learned the grace of letting go, she would not have discovered what she did on this day she opened the lid on what once held her youthful hopes and dreams.
It was a cedar chest she received on her sixteenth birthday. A tradition passed down by maternal generations for holding treasured fine linens such as handmade doilies, christening dresses for babies, knitted blankets or a handmade quilt. Perhaps even a silk negligée for one’s wedding night. The things young women hoped to use when they had a family and a home of their own one day.
Patrica used her hope chest to store her diaries. She began writing in a diary when she was thirteen. She continued writing in one until the day of her stroke. The content she wrote morphed over the years. What initially began as a sounding board and friend, evolved into a collection of significant moments, and then became letters to Edward, Stephanie, and Laura that she believed they would value receiving one day. Or at least as Patricia intended when she began writing letters right after Stephanie was born.
From the moment Patricia held the first life she had birthed into this world, Patricia became aware of her own mortality. One day she would die, and Stephanie and Laura and their families would continue without her. She may also be the reason Edward realizes the last portion of their vows that cannot be known until. Death parts.
As Patrica held her still naked and bloodied daughter to her chest, the umbilical cord cut only moments before, Patricia knew she only had a finite amount of time to live. That night she wrote in her diary she had packed when preparing her hospital suitcase for labor day. Dear Diary, today I held my life in my arms. I am now a mother. My dear child, from this day forward, I will write the words you will one day long to know.
The diaries Patricia had written in between twenty-three years ago and now she had been storing in a cabinet in their walk-in closet. Patricia felt it was time she put all her diaries together in one location. She planned to gather the diaries from her hope chest and add them to the cabinet.
Greeting her when she opened the lid was William’s letter. We both know I desired coffee to turn into more. That you said “no” restores my faith in women and marriage. I hope Edward knows how lucky he is. William.
For a split-second Patricia debated leaving the letter. Maybe it would be good for Edward to find a letter she had kept tucked away, too. But then Patricia thought about what words she would want Edward to find, and they didn’t include a time another man desired her.
Patrica reached into the chest to pull out the oldest diaries. She skimmed her early teenage ones. Joshua and Kaylen might find them amusing. She wasn’t sure if Laura would care to see any of her diaries. She hadn’t talked to her youngest daughter since Stephanie was dying. Edward wouldn’t care about them, either. Into the “toss” pile they went.
She opened the diary that included when her and Johnny broke up. Her memory was of breaking up because he would not go to church with her and how he had treated her like she was a princess. Nostalgia held her longing for what she had walked away from.
Patricia read a notation from Friday, July 26, 1963. Today I told Johnny I was breaking up with him. I am not sure which hurts more. Breaking up. Or that he didn’t fight for me.
Patricia had blocked out Johnny not trying to talk her into a different decision. She recalled the weeks after, anticipating Johnny would contact her and how he would tell her he would go to church once a month because he didn’t want to lose her; he wanted to build that house for her. She could accept once a month and negotiate holidays like Easter and Christmas.
Patricia recalled Mary telling her during one of her cry herself to sleep nights after their breakup that Johnny had only told her he’d build her a house so that Patricia would have sex with him in that meadow. Patricia didn’t want to believe it was true at the time. Not until she heard a few months later Johnny was getting married. He’d gotten a girl pregnant.
Patricia opened another diary. This one held a letter in an unopened envelope. Her name was written on the front. It was inserted in the page dated three days before Edward and her wedding day.
As Patricia opened the envelope, a photograph fell out. It was her and Edward. He was looking at her like she was the most beautiful sight.
My dear Patricia,
I promise I did not read your diary. There are things I want to say to you before our wedding day. Since I am better at writing than speaking, I thought I would leave this in your diary for you to find.
I once…
As Patricia continued reading, her eyes filled with tears.