Something Is Happening Here – Memory to Light, Day 9

There is something happening. There is a groundswell of feeling. There are tears and light and thanks, and pain healing itself. All flowing like a river. There are conversations and openings. There is awareness borne of talking. Understandings created right in the middle of conversation, like cells are multiplying and dividing in our very words.

Reset

A few years after the 9/11 attacks, I lived in L.A. I was tired. My learned resources were failing me. My scrappiness was wearing me thin. I thought this sense of loss and isolation and feeling out of control of my life was the beginning of the way it would be for the rest of time. I thought I was losing my mind.

I moved to Santa Barbara and hit reset. I was still looking for my mind. But I was starting ground floor. First take care of home. Then take care of food. Then take care of work. Then take care of future. It was one thing at a time. I didn’t know this version of myself, who had gypsied about cities and adventures and job opportunities with ease.

Down by the river

I sat at my makeshift receptionist’s desk, looking out on the parking lot one day, questioning what I was doing there but knowing that it would get me to the next thing, and the next. It was like breathing, each day was. First in. Now out. Breathe in again. Doesn’t matter if you don’t understand how you got here, breathe out.

I set down the phone, and outside, saw a river of butterflies, floating by. I’m not kidding. A current of Monarch butterflies streaming, no, gushing through the parking lot. Thousands upon thousands of butterflies, black and orange and fragile enough to look lighter than wind, but clearly muscling through it midway on their 2500-mile journey from Mexico to Northern California.

I watched the migration till it dwindled about 20 minutes after it began. It felt like a cleansing. And a prayer. Down at the river. I think that’s what they call a baptism.

Transforming current

Thank you to everyone who is reading and sharing the project with friends, and commenting and telling stories. Something is happening here. Something like looking in, shaking down, waking up and flying.

Photo credit: Brian Puckett

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(You can read all of the Memory to Light stories in order on the side bar -–>)

Thanks for reading Day 9 of “Memory to Light: 31 Days of Stories, August 11 – September 11, 2011.” It is an exercise in writing about loss, for the purpose of letting grief wake, live, and pass through the system. Grief is transformation. Story is transformation. Our world could use a some wakeful transformation right now. Take a peek at the introductory post for the full story of what we’re up to.

Join me

Consider this project an online story circle. Read a story that moves you. Write your own on your blog. Link it to the comments below, so we can read your piece. If you don’t have a blog, write your story in the comments.

Let your memories live. Let small corners of your grief breathe. Let your loss be swept into the collective experience of people sharing, witnessing, and letting be.

 

Tagged as: 9/11, Grief, Loss, Memory, Memory to Light, Transformation, Writing