i find myself in an odd situation. i set myself on a course that makes sense to me. i wade through the stuff that makes a weighty decision, well, weighty. you know, the pros and the cons. i think about the parameters within which i can live. i chose the path and give myself the pep talk that screams "YOU CAN DO THIS!" (the "this" is really irrelevant)
i do everything i need to do to make sure i am successful. i change patterns, clothes, schedules, habits . . . (i even wore 2 inch heels thinking it might give me a different look at the world. for those of you who don't know me well, i am a daily wearer of 4 1/2 to 5 inch heels) i work at finding my balance. and you know things hum along pretty well . . . for a while. and then out of no where something will slap me right up side the head and knock me over . . . not down . . . but definitely over.
it seems strange to me that for all "things" i put in place to ensure i am stable, propped up, balanced, etc. it only takes one small event to tip me over. but not all of the time. just every now and again.
so, how fragile am i? well, i am hardly fragile! are my expectations of myself unrealistic? perhaps. i am a capable person. i can do this. cue the really, really powerful music - maybe chariots of fire or some other such song. i feel better already! sometimes it just helps to get the thoughts out of my head.
i do everything i need to do to make sure i am successful. i change patterns, clothes, schedules, habits . . . (i even wore 2 inch heels thinking it might give me a different look at the world. for those of you who don't know me well, i am a daily wearer of 4 1/2 to 5 inch heels) i work at finding my balance. and you know things hum along pretty well . . . for a while. and then out of no where something will slap me right up side the head and knock me over . . . not down . . . but definitely over.
it seems strange to me that for all "things" i put in place to ensure i am stable, propped up, balanced, etc. it only takes one small event to tip me over. but not all of the time. just every now and again.
so, how fragile am i? well, i am hardly fragile! are my expectations of myself unrealistic? perhaps. i am a capable person. i can do this. cue the really, really powerful music - maybe chariots of fire or some other such song. i feel better already! sometimes it just helps to get the thoughts out of my head.
One of the last interviews I ever did was with an elderly woman who was a survivor of the Aushwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. She lived in a small, tidy house in Salina with a little garden just outside her front door. She made me lemonade and smoothed out her dress primly before folding her hands one atop the other as I started my tape deck.
ReplyDeleteWe spoke for almost an hour about her memories of that confused and painful time in her childhood. She didn't flinch once as she recounted some of the unspeakable horror she witnessed as a little girl. Her voice was steady and strong, and from time to time, she would reach out and touch me lightly on the wrist to emphasize some detail of what she was remembering for me.
I stopped the recorder and thanked her politely for her time. She smiled and followed me out the door, pulling on an old straw hat as she meant to tend her garden.
I was almost to my truck when she called out to me one final time. I turned, eyebrows raised, curious.
She was on her hands and knees, fingers working deep into the rich brown loam of her vegetable bed.
"You had asked me earlier, young man, about how my time in the camps has affected me," she said. Without looking up, she continued. "There is only one thing I have lived for, for the past sixty years."
I walked closer, tilting my head to the side, studying her bent, wizened frame.
"Vengeance," she said quietly, clearly then, looking up at me at last. "I awake every day and live. I tend my garden and breathe. I have loved and born children and lived to see them bear their own."
Her mouth spread open in a wide, white, brilliant smile, and her blue eyes blazed and brightly as stars, framed by the crow's feet of a lifetime spent in the out-of-doors. At that moment, she was no longer the old woman who'd served me lemonade. She was something younger, wilder and as beautiful a thing as I'd ever seen. I could see her as she was when she stole the breath away from any man who laid eyes upon her.
"I have lived every day with vengeance in my heart and upon my soul. I have outlived the monsters who would have made a meal of me, and today...today I am *alive*."
She pulled out a fat, pale potato from the ground and brushed it off with her bare fingers, the dirt falling in a soft rain around her knees.
"And so are you," she said, no longer looking at me. "Do not waste it."
I could only blink and nod before turning away and trudging back to my truck. When I'd climbed inside, I took one last look at her in her garden, working there with her hands in the earth.
"I promise," I said. And I meant it.
I, too, promise. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for the reminder!
ReplyDeleteAmazing, simply amazing.
ReplyDeleteInspiring! Reminded me of the ending of Saving Private Ryan..."Earn This"
ReplyDeleteWow... I will read this again and again and share it with my children. It is powerful, thank you Paul for sharing it.
ReplyDeleteIt is wonderful how others touch our lives when we least expect it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Paul!