Minor irritations. Opened up the weather app on my phone last night to find they'd changed the graphics. Harrumphed to Dearest One about it and thought how I dislike even minor visual changes that appear in a touch of a finger.
Saw my grief/loss counsellor yesterday armed with a collage assignment completed. Stupid things really. Make me feel silly and childish cutting images out of magazines and pasting them to paper. Except when I was done I wanted to weep. I stood there puzzled at how a random assortment of pictures with jagged edges could evoke such feelings. I didn't let myself look too long or hard at what had appeared so innocently under my fingertips.
We look at the collage together and he tells me he has never seen one so linear. I've even numbered the pictures. We talk about linear and labyrinths and wanting things to proceed in an orderly fashion. True. And then he posits that life and my cancer journey is more like a maze. My hands fly to my face in horror and I tell him I would never arrange the pictures in a maze. Dead ends. Changing directions. Being lost. My worst nightmare. Except the journey has arranged itself in exactly that way without my permission. Which is the crux of the problem. The place I kick against until my toe bleeds.
Silent tears spring from somewhere far below the jagged mastectomy scar that runs across my chest.
He points out the colour of the poster board I've picked to paste my pictures on and it's the colour of the heart chakra. The place of emotions.
And so something as silly and childish and innocent shows the very deep child wound within me. The one who cried for order and control and the ability to predict what would happen next.
He rolls up the collage and hands it back to me with instructions to write a little every day about the pictures and my thoughts until I'm ready to tackle writing the story in a bigger burst of creativity. We put off cutting up the individual pictures and selectively burning them as the time is right. Symbolically burning and letting go of what they represent. And a torrent of tears roll down my face unleashing my child into a vast land of opportunity and growth if I can just embrace the graphic change in front of me.
Saw my grief/loss counsellor yesterday armed with a collage assignment completed. Stupid things really. Make me feel silly and childish cutting images out of magazines and pasting them to paper. Except when I was done I wanted to weep. I stood there puzzled at how a random assortment of pictures with jagged edges could evoke such feelings. I didn't let myself look too long or hard at what had appeared so innocently under my fingertips.
We look at the collage together and he tells me he has never seen one so linear. I've even numbered the pictures. We talk about linear and labyrinths and wanting things to proceed in an orderly fashion. True. And then he posits that life and my cancer journey is more like a maze. My hands fly to my face in horror and I tell him I would never arrange the pictures in a maze. Dead ends. Changing directions. Being lost. My worst nightmare. Except the journey has arranged itself in exactly that way without my permission. Which is the crux of the problem. The place I kick against until my toe bleeds.
Silent tears spring from somewhere far below the jagged mastectomy scar that runs across my chest.
He points out the colour of the poster board I've picked to paste my pictures on and it's the colour of the heart chakra. The place of emotions.
And so something as silly and childish and innocent shows the very deep child wound within me. The one who cried for order and control and the ability to predict what would happen next.
He rolls up the collage and hands it back to me with instructions to write a little every day about the pictures and my thoughts until I'm ready to tackle writing the story in a bigger burst of creativity. We put off cutting up the individual pictures and selectively burning them as the time is right. Symbolically burning and letting go of what they represent. And a torrent of tears roll down my face unleashing my child into a vast land of opportunity and growth if I can just embrace the graphic change in front of me.
7 comments:
{{Hope}} So much to bear. :(
{0}
Hope...such a brave girl you are. Isn't it amazing how our minds work to adapt/survive/and continue on ?
I'm at that place too, feeling like everything is out of my control (always is) and turning on me. It's partly my age, circumstances and my fears of becoming too dependent on everyone around me.
I try to find that place and just breathe....
We speak into our art and creativity words that our minds do not have or know. How courageous your inner girl is...how whole you are becoming.
Much love to you, Hope... as you do the hard work ahead. I know you're not looking for the Hallmark silver-lining, but I couldn't help but be struck by much healing you must have already done in order to be able to be open to this.
Peace xoxo
Hope, you speak out of an inner well, your words able to reach out and penetrate into others...
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