a more perfect metaphor

Are the words failing or am I failing the words?

Carl Sagan, poet-scientist and his sexy-ass turtle neck

Words are the pinprick stars in the yawning expanse of dark matter in which our human communication is suspended. Sure, more subtle “light” waves abound, powerful albeit hidden from the naked eye— the ultraviolet chemistry of new love, the gamma radiation of unspoken anger, the supernova of bodily violence- but words remain the most abundant and reliable way that we shed light on our feelings and our desires. They’re how we make ourselves known, how we come to know ourselves.

Unsurprisingly, I have been thinking a lot about words lately…

Attempting to translate thoughts from your head to the page, there’s a trick to finding the truth, the bone deep of it, and I have been struggling, first and foremost, with how to describe my very self at this point in time. As a 39 year old woman returning to school, leaving home and husband and, once again, causing the people in her life to shout down the phone “WHERE exactly are you again?” the phrase “late bloomer” is one I’ve employed, albeit with chagrin.

Does it really fit?

If I give the metaphor a closer read, would I now, finally, be enjoying my inflorescence? To give myself some additional rope to hang from, perhaps I am biennial like Verbascum Thapsus or Common Mullein. In it’s first year, it keeps low to the ground, cultivating a basal rosette that can be luxuriantly soft but not particularly remarkable. It is useful, has medicine affiliated with the throat and lungs and helpful for literally spitting things out. ok. Liking that symbolism…

But is that me? Sort of keeping to the ground, waiting to pop? Does this mean that everything up until now has been almost like waiting? Just a tap root tapping?

By the second year, the plant is off like a rocket and the rosette sends up a stalk that can get as tall as 10 feet! I always loved the bit of trivia that the dried stalks, dipped in tallow or fat or beeswax, were used as torches in the Roman era and assuredly before then. I am feeling this perspective, the authority, the sense of arrival!

POW! year two!

But then that plant dies.

Sure, loads of seeds rattle out of her dry, desiccated husk and her body disintegrates giving new life a chance, but that’s it for her!

Perhaps, therefore, I must be a perennial?

How about a chive plant? Growing more bushy and stout and pungent by the year; helpful in the kitchen… tasty… a bit overpowering at times.

Gotta love that punk rock hairdo. Definitely had that one at some point(s).

This feels more apt. But what I suppose I’m really struggling with here is the late part. I keep feeling like I am coming to realizations about myself, daring to dream, literally trying to imagine myself in a future that feels aligned with my hearts desires but I am late to the game! Yet, when I look back, I can’t seem to muster much regret for what I’ve lived and seen and come through. I know that I am a product of all that I have done, that I am someone who usually needs a hard lesson to make things stick and, unlike other times in my life, I feel I understand the choices I made and I am happy where they have brought me. I don’t want to feel late or say it, even as haha my little bit I trot out at parties.

There is a part of me that NEEDS to believe that there is a perfect metaphor for everything- one (or more) for any and every occasion. One of my most powerful compulsions to write is in finding, fashioning, shoe-horning the right metaphor so as to facilitate understanding. So much SO MUCH of our human experience is done inside us; in our bodies, processed through our minds and viewed through the lenses of our experiences. There is an ultimate loneliness to being alive because you can only walk a mile in someones shoes, you can’t crawl into their bodies and skin-walk (unless you are Buffalo Bill) . Words are of the utmost importance for making yourself understood but its not just for the people on the outside; it’s also so we can understand ourselves. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard and read lately about the importance of storytelling to the human experience. There is a part of me that wants to be like “Pfft! What? Are? You? Even? Talking about?” as I grapple with the very serious feelings I feel about writing, yet struggle to own.

Ruth and Charque, Tarot Readers and Spiritual Advisors Par Excellence, changed my life 10 years ago. During my first 4 hour reading, they provided insights that have reverberated through my life and gave me lessons that I am still unpacking and examining today. They made me read this whole children’s book in front of them while they waited patiently and then they asked me how reading the book made me feel.

If you haven’t read this; Frederick is a mouse that spends the summer appreciating the beauty of nature while all his mouse buddies are busy storing up for winter. Once the snow falls and they’re all tucked into their burrow, they’re like hmmm. how you likin’ that corn, Freddy? But then their provisions run down to nothing and they ask, starving and sad, if Frederick has anything at fuckin’ all to bring to the table yet. And he basically leads them on a guided meditation back to the summer, describing the warmth of the sun and the fragrance of the flowers and they feel it. And they are not only transported but are nourished. Because art is Important. Because beauty is an essential part of being alive and we will become sick and starve without it. Because stories connect our minds to our bodies to the world around us and this connection is essential to our happiness and growth.

I remember reading the book and looking up at Ruth and Charque saying “Frederick was a lazy mouse!” And they looked at me with so much compassion and smiled and then I cried because I knew they were telling me I was Frederick and I didn’t yet see that what he did was important. That I was not yet connecting with my deepest yearnings. That I am Very Afraid of being seen as lazy. But I am beginning to believe.

Spinning a yarn.

Have you ever watched someone spin yarn? If you watch videos to keep anxiety at bay, consider them. There are so many things that we humans had to do ourselves, back in the day, in order to be live and be comfortable and one of them was making our own clothes. But first, you had to make the yarn. I am still considering getting the words “HECHO A MANO” (“made by hand” in Spanish) tattooed somewhere on my wrists or hands so I can always see it when I am working. It is one of my favorite phrases and is one of my maxims for living. I want to do it myself. I want a hand-made life. I want what I wear, what I eat, what I use, what surrounds m, to be made by people and their intentions, tastes and unique approaches. Perfectly imperfect and embracing the time it takes to make.

I have been thinking so much about the metaphor of what writing IS for me and I keep coming back to the idea of weaving. There is a painstaking, line by line building to it that perfectly correlates. There is the essential-ness of it for me; reading has been like clothing, the fabric of both my dreams and my everyday living. There is the chasm between the micro of the word and the macro of the finished piece that is often bridged solely by faith. And it also brings me a lot of peace with where I am at, right now, right here, as a “beginner” because, if I am weaving, it is with all this incredible, interesting thread that I have spun over the years. I have been so lucky to have had so many experiences. I have seen so much beauty, traveled so widely, loved and laughed and lunched so deeply. I have filled a storehouse with material that is ready to be woven together into different pieces and is a joy to let the threads of the past run through my fingers, remembering, coming to better understandings and making new connections.

Sometimes I feel like I had to build the fuckin’ loom myself, that I busy myself with the work of planning instead of sitting down, faithfully, with patience and persistence, forgiving the imperfections of the cloth I am making as I learn the art. Letting myself walk around in this metaphor feels like home. It feels like I have figured out how to explain myself to myself and, through it, have begun the work of beginning.