Spark: Make two lists: What is Lost. What is Found.
Fill each list. Entries don’t have to correspond to each other.
What is Lost:
- hours watching Russian dash cam videos
- companions
- the campanula that the chipmunks ate
- yet another catalog-bought Cardinal flower
- those teardrop-shaped beads rimmed in metal, in blues and greens
What is Found:
- a baby in the bulrushes
- the strength to man up to Sophie, the new 100-pound extrovert of a dog
- it is what it is, I am what I am
- a compound of 18 acres, six or seven or eight goats, three wise old dogs
- strength in resignation
________
Convergence
I remember the first time at the writing group when Ellen said: “Now we’ll go around the table and each read one sentence of our sentences. Out loud.”
We had just created a list: “On the one hand… on the other hand…” I hadn’t foreseen the sharing part of the exercise. My psychic self jumped straight up out of her skin and ran screaming through the sliding glass door. Terrified, my earthly self remained at the table, surrounded by bloody shards of fear and self-consciousness.
Well, today I knew what was coming. I had my sentences. I even combined two of them into a real blockbuster. You all were going to love it.
For the first round, I picked What is Found #1: the baby in the bulrushes, because the image had popped up out of nowhere, and was pure, sweet, and felt significant.
Next, I chose What is Lost #1: the hours lost on Russian dash cam videos. They are a huge youtube time sink that I fall into a little after midnight, eating up hours and hours, sometimes all the way to dawn. I am hoping that admitting this in public will help me stop.
Then I read the wrong sentence. Instead of my wise and wonderful blockbuster, which was What is Found #5 combined with What is Found #3: Strength in Resignation: it is what it is, I am what I am, I just blurted out the next thing, What is Found #2, about how I had found the strength to man up to Sophie.
The truth is, I’m not there yet. Manning up is not my go-to approach to life, even though it sure seems like a good idea. I’m trying to manifest the manned-up attitude by using the fake-it-till-you-make-it approach, all the time hoping she doesn’t notice that damned doubt in my shoulders.
“Fake-it-till-you-make-it” obviously clashes with “I am what I am.” Many real truths in life seem to be that sort of paradox. (That sort of paradox? What do I mean? Are there many kinds of paradoxes? …paradoxi? …doxi? Look… if Sophie was a dachshund, I wouldn’t have to be manning up, right? Unless she was a hundred-pound dachshund… Jesus Christ – that’s a scary image.)
Right now, the truth is closer to: I am finding the strength to man up to this new dog.
It is what it is becomes an adjunct truth. What I really mean is that I am finding the strength to man up to my family. I am what I am. I am sick of faking it so you’ll let me hang out with you.
I am over here, in the bulrushes, with this baby I just found. It’s me! She’s perfect.
And the new 100-pound dog – Sophie – really, really likes her. Just the way she is.________
cayugaview 